Image Navigation names Dr. Sotiris Giakis chief clinical officer

Image Navigation appointed implant surgeon Dr. Sotiris Giakis as chief clinical officer on August 12, 2026, as the company pushes ahead with IGI, its real-time navigation system for dental implant surgery. The move is meant to sharpen clinical strategy, streamline advanced workflows and expand clinician training around the platform.

Why it matters: - Image Navigation is tying product development more tightly to day-to-day surgical practice as it works to commercialize IGI, its real-time dynamic navigation system for dental implant surgery. - The appointment adds a clinician with hands-on experience in complex implant reconstruction and guided surgery to the company’s leadership team. - The role is designed to influence workflow design, clinician education and scientific evaluation as IGI expands beyond basic implant placement.

What happened: - Image Navigation announced Dr. Sotiris Giakis as chief clinical officer on August 12, 2026. - Dr. Giakis will lead clinical strategy for IGI and oversee advanced surgical workflows, international clinician education and clinically relevant scientific evidence. - The company said Dr. Giakis will work with engineering, software, regulatory and commercial teams to connect surgical experience with product development and future innovation. - Lawrence Obstfeld, Image Navigation’s chief executive officer, said Dr. Giakis has become one of the world’s most experienced users of IGI.

The details: - Dr. Giakis is based in Igoumenitsa, Greece, and works as an implant surgeon, educator and digital dentistry expert. - He teaches postgraduate implantology and advanced surgical techniques at UCAM Catholic University of Murcia. - He maintains a referral practice focused on advanced implant reconstruction, digital dentistry and image-guided surgery, with particular expertise in severely atrophic jaws. - Since adopting IGI in September 2025, Dr. Giakis has performed more than 400 navigated clinical procedures using the system. - His cases have included routine implant placement, full-arch rehabilitation, severe maxillary and mandibular atrophy, and zygomatic, pterygoid and transnasal implants. - Dr. Giakis has also used navigation-assisted workflows in selected oral surgery procedures beyond implant placement, including osteotomies for bone augmentation, maxillary sinus elevation, impacted tooth management and complex apical surgery near critical structures. - In many of those procedures, direct visualization of the target is limited during critical stages, making real-time navigation a tool for continuous three-dimensional orientation. - Dr. Giakis’s academic background includes advanced postgraduate training in Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine at the Medical School of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

Between the lines: - Image Navigation is signaling that IGI’s next phase is not just hardware or software refinement, but workflow standardization and clinical validation. - The company appears to be building a tighter feedback loop between surgeons and product teams to improve usability, efficiency and patient safety. - Dr. Giakis’s comments suggest the company wants IGI framed as part of the full surgical workflow, not only as an implant-placement guide. - The broader push into endodontic applications hints at future use cases beyond dental implantology.

What's next: - Dr. Giakis will focus on standardized, reproducible workflows for advanced implant surgery, especially full-arch rehabilitation and fully edentulous patients. - Those workflows will combine prosthetically driven planning, real-time navigation, postoperative evaluation and structured clinician training. - Dr. Giakis is also contributing to early-stage evaluation of navigation concepts for anatomically challenging endodontic procedures. - Image Navigation said the appointment will help ensure future IGI innovations remain aligned with clinical usability, scientific rigor and patient safety.

The bottom line: - Image Navigation is elevating clinical leadership as it tries to turn IGI from a navigation platform into a broader image-guided surgical workflow system.