Spinal canal stenosis – a bony narrowing of the spinal canal – can be agonizing. If it presses on the spinal cord, it comes to chronic pain and paralysis. Surgical intervention is often the only solution: In Germany alone, 111,000 cases are treated every year. However, since stenosis is close to the spinal cord, bony decompression, in which the constrictions are removed using high-speed milling, is risky. A robot-assisted, optically monitored laser procedure, which is currently in the pre-development stage at the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT in Aachen, could help to minimize the risk of such procedures in the future.