Image guided surgery: New technology for surgery of soft tissue and bone sarcomas

Aim: Providing the surgical oncologist with a new means of performing safe and radical sarcoma surgery with the help of image guidance technology. Method: Two patients with pelvic sarcomas were operated upon with the help of an intra-operative navigation system. The technology of image guided surgery is described in one patient with a retroperitoneal sarcoma invading the bony pelvis and another patient with a chondrosarcoma of the iliac crest. Results: We show that this new procedure enables optimal radical surgical resection with minimal treatment related morbidity or loss of function. Conclusion: Image guided surgery is a new technical tool in sarcoma surgery. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.