Brainlab Spine & Trauma Navigation System now supports BoneMRI

Achieving radiation-free spine navigation and optimized workflow

Utrecht, April 7, 2025 – In the last decades, the number of spinal surgeries performed worldwide has been steadily increasing. As more patients undergo spine surgery, radiation exposure rises accordingly. Fortunately, the field of spine surgery has reached a significant milestone with the introduction of BoneMRI-enabled radiation-free navigation in spinal procedures using Brainlab Spine Navigation. This advancement eliminates radiation exposure, while preserving the benefits of 3D image-guided surgical planning and navigation features essential to everyday cases.

The workflow is streamlined by eliminating the need for an additional CT scan, as all relevant information on both bone and soft tissue is captured in a single MRI scan. The process is as follows:

1. Data acquisition

BoneMRI protocol is included on the MRI scanner. Scans are automatically performed and sent to the hospital PACS.

2. Data transfer

Source images are automatically de-identified (pseudonymized) and forwarded to the cloud via a secure gateway.

3. Image reconstruction

Once the BoneMRI application receives the source images, reconstruction starts automatically. The completed BoneMRI images are then re-identified and sent back to the hospital PACS.

4. Integration with Brainlab

BoneMRI images are labeled as CTs, making them compatible with Elements Spine Planning and Spine & Trauma Navigation.

5. Navigation for surgery

For navigated spine surgery, registration of patients is done using Registration Software Spine Surface Matching , enabling full use of Brainlab’s planning and navigation tools with BoneMRI.

The usage of BoneMRI with the Brainlab navigation system delivers significant benefits for patients, hospitals, and healthcare professionals alike. This combination not only eliminates radiation exposure but also streamlines workflows, potentially leading to time and cost savings. Healthcare professionals gain access to more comprehensive diagnostic information from the BoneMRI images, while patients benefit from improved care and safer procedures. The future is here with radiation-free imaging.

Utrecht, February 2026 – MRIguidance has released a new update to BoneMRI, making the solution easier to use across the hospital workflow while expanding compatibility with scanners, systems, and IT environments.

A key feature of the release is new stitching functionality, which allows clinicians to generate combined anatomical regions of e.g. the cervical, thoracic and lumbar spine, into a single, continuous image, providing total spine views. This enables assessment of pathology across multiple spinal regions without switching between image series, which might improve clinical confidence by visualizing anatomical relationships in one comprehensive view, and reduce interpretation time by eliminating manual cross-referencing between sub-regions.

The update also introduces extended compatibility across imaging platforms and infrastructure. BoneMRI now supports pelvic region imaging across the full range of GE, Siemens, and Philips MRI scanners at both 1.5T and 3T. In addition, the software expands support for Enhanced DICOM processing and is now compatible with Windows Server 2025 OS via the MRIguidance Gateway.

These improvements enhance interoperability with MRI scanners and DICOM inputs, simplify coordination with hospital IT departments, and broaden anatomical and vendor coverage to support smoother clinical adoption.

The release also includes additional support and security enhancements.

The latest BoneMRI update benefits radiologists, MR technologists, IT teams, and surgeons, further strengthening BoneMRI’s role in efficient, radiation-free bone imaging across clinical workflows.

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