ABSTRACT
Fluoro-navigation technology becomes more and more important in orthopaedic surgery. Because of preoperative alteration in fracture fragment orientation it is necessary to complete the fracture reduction before fluoroscopic image acquisition and surgery assisted with navigation. The advantages of the fluoro-navigation technology include minimal X-ray exposure, accurate positioning of implants, real time interactive quantitative data of the images, and minimally invasive surgery. With further development and improvement of both software and hardware, many operations, which require X-ray monitoring, can be conducted with the help of fluoro-navigation technology. Our past 4-year clinical experiences confirm the above advantages and its potential applications. As the technology of fluoro-navigation is still under improvement, further evaluation and validation is necessary to confirm its clinical values. In addition, fluoro-navigationsystems may play an important role in virtual surgical training and assessment. It may provide not only training opportunities to young surgeons but also an objective assessment system for evaluating proficiency of surgical techniques.