Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) is a common spinal deformity in young people that can significantly affect mobility and quality of life. In severe cases, surgical correction is performed using Posterior Instrumented Spinal Fusion (PISF), which corrects the deformity but permanently eliminates motion in the treated spinal segments and alters spinal biomechanics.

Despite these consequences, AIS surgery is primarily guided by spinal shape and alignment. Quantitative information on how individual spinal segments respond to mechanical loading in vivo is currently unavailable. Existing methods either assess spinal motion without controlled loading or rely on in vitro experiments that cannot fully represent AIS and the living spine.

This project developed a robotic approach to measure the mechanical behaviour of individual spinal segments during AIS surgery. A patient-specific motion parametrization and a six-degree-of-freedom robotic system enable controlled loading of functional spinal units (FSUs) during PISF and measurement of their mechanical response.

The SNSF project brings together the BIROMED Lab at the University of Basel, theOrthopedics Group of the University Children’s Hospital of Basel (UKBB) and the Computational Bioengineering Group at the University of Bern. The collaboration combines clinical expertise, patient-specific modelling and simulation, and robotic system development, establishing a pathway towards more biomechanically informed and mobility-preserving treatment for patients with AIS.

Project leader: Dr. Lauren Chee, Dr. Felix Erb,  Aysegül Kilic
Collaborators: PD Dr. Daniel Studer  Prof. Dr. Carol-C. Hasler  Prof. Dr. Philippe Büchler