Combined 3D rapid prototyping and computer navigation facilitate surgical treatment of congenital scoliosis: A case report and description of technique

This study describes the technique of combined Orbic 3D navigation (O3DN) and 3D rapid prototyping (3DRP) to assist surgical correction of congenital scoliosis. A 12-year-old boy with congenital scoliosis. His father brought him to our hospital upon noticing the boy's asymmetry of the trunk. Congenital scoliosis. O3DN and 3DRP were used to assist correction surgery in this patient. The Cobb angle of segmental scoliosis (T8-L2) was 46.9° preoperatively and 2.3° at the last postoperative follow-up; correction was 95.1%. The average segmental kyphosis (T5-T12) was 45.2° preoperatively and 18.6° at the postoperative follow-up; correction was 58.9%. The preoperative sagittal imbalance of 56.2 mm was improved to 9.7 mm. The mean distance between the center sacral vertical line and the C7 plumb line was reduced from 5.7 to 4.1 mm. Operative time and bleeding volume was impressively little, with no misplacement of pedicle screws or other surgical complications. Combined 3DRP and O3DN helped achieve satisfactory correction for this case of congenital scoliosis. The application of 3DRP aided by O3DN in surgical treatment of congenital scoliosis can reduce operative time, lessen blood loss, reduce screw misplacement, and avoid neurovascular damage. However, patients' hospital costs were greater. Our lessons learnt are that the relative position between the tracker and the pedicle must be static to ensure the accuracy of the whole system during the entire operation.