Surgical instrument for orthopedic surgery

Abstract

A rotatable surgical instrument having a protective hood with articulating bendable distal end is provided to improve and enable various orthopedic surgical procedures such as arthroscopy. The protective hood surrounds the surgical tool bit exposing only a portion of the tool bit for removing bone or soft tissue material and protects the nerve from the surgical tool bit. The protective hood can be controllably rotated from the instrument's hand piece to control the orientation of the attack angle of the surgical tool bit. Additionally, the bending of the distal end of the instrument can be controlled from the hand piece.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application is a continuation-in-part application of the co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11 / 017,150 filed on Dec. 20, 2004, the contents of which is incorporated herein by reference.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0002]This invention relates to a surgical instrument for use in orthopedic surgeries and more particularly to a surgical high-speed burr for use in spinal surgical procedures and soft tissue resectors useful in arthroscopy.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0003]Spinal stenosis is a degenerative condition of the spine that afflicts primarily the elderly population. Patients with lumbar spinal stenosis suffer from severe radiating pain, which limits their ability to ambulate and can cause weakness and numbness in the legs and in severe cases, loss of bowel and bladder control may occur. It is the development of hypertrophic bone spurs off the facet joints, protrusions of the disc annulus, as well as hypertrophy of the ligamentum...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The present invention is a surgical instrument that includes a hand piece and a shaft portion with a drive shaft and a surgical tool bit. A protective hood is connected to the shaft portion which can rotate relative to the surgical tool bit to expose different portions of it. The instrument is controlled by a first control member that manipulates the shaft portion to rotate the protective hood. The instrument allows for safer decompression in the open setting and also minimizes damage to bones and ligaments near the surgery site during removal of the herniated nucleus pulposus.

Problems solved by technology

Patients with lumbar spinal stenosis suffer from severe radiating pain, which limits their ability to ambulate and can cause weakness and numbness in the legs and in severe cases, loss of bowel and bladder control may occur.

However, when there is a severe amount of compression at the neural foramen or the lateral recess, the interval between the nerve root and the encroaching bone may not be sufficient to safely conduct the neural decompression using the conventional tools, such as a Kerrison punch or a curette.

Insertion of a Kerrison footplate or a curette into a severely stenotic interval may cause compressive injury to an already compressed nerve root.

This maneuver, however, poses risk to the nerve root because there is a possibility that the osteotome will slip or advance too deep, thereby damaging the exiting nerve.

If one is too aggressive with the burr, then neural injury can occur by penetrating the dura or wrapping the neural elements in the burr bit.

Because the risk of catching the neural elements with the conventional high speed burr bit is too high, the use of conventional high speed burrs to perform the lateral recess and foraminal decompression has not been practicable.

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