Abstract
This paper presents a method to monitor temperature in neurosurgical bone grinding procedure using the motor electrical power as input. Bone grinding is a critical procedure in the skull base neurosurgery to remove the cranial bone and approach the tumor through the sphenoid sinus. Heat generated during grinding could damage the optic nerve or coagulate the blood in the carotid artery, while direct temperature measurement is difficult. The temperature estimation is realized using a heat conversion model and the thermal model based on finite element analysis (FEA). The heat conversion model determines heat generation based on its linear correlation to the motor electrical power. The FEA thermal model calculates the temperature on the bone surface using the obtained heat. Bone grinding experiments are conducted, and results demonstrate the feasibility and accuracy of proposed model for monitoring local temperature in endonasal bone grinding. © 2013 The Authors.