Bone Density Modeling for Personalized Orthopedic Implant Planning

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Solution Overview

Problem

Current surgical planning systems for joint repairs lack integration of soft tissue dimensions and characteristics, which are crucial for determining appropriate surgical interventions and implant selection, leading to suboptimal surgical outcomes.

Innovation Solution

The system determines soft tissue dimensions and characteristics from patient imaging data, using these to suggest appropriate surgical interventions and recommend implant types, such as anatomical or reverse shoulder replacements, based on bone density metrics.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If surgical planning systems use basic bone modeling without soft tissue integration, then the system complexity remains low, but the surgical outcome quality deteriorates due to lack of personalized anatomical considerations

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvesurgical outcome qualityVSAvoidsystem complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent merges bone modeling and soft tissue modeling into a single integrated surgical planning system. The system combines CT imaging data processing for both hard and soft tissues, integrates their respective segmentation and modeling algorithms, and unifies their presentation in the surgical plan, thereby improving surgical outcome quality while managing system complexity through consolidation.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #5Merging (Combining)

Solution Approach 2:

The surgical planning system is designed to handle multiple tissue types (bone and soft tissue) with a single unified platform. It performs diverse functions including imaging data acquisition, segmentation, 3D modeling, and surgical guide generation for both tissue types, making the system versatile and adaptable to different surgical scenarios without requiring separate specialized systems.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #6Universality (Multi-functionality)

2Manufacturing precision

If the system integrates soft tissue dimensions and characteristics analysis, then the personalized surgical planning quality improves, but the data processing time increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvesurgical planning precisionVSAvoiddata processing time
Core Design Contradiction:
Manufacturing precisionVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs preliminary segmentation and modeling of soft tissue structures from CT imaging data during the preoperative planning phase. By completing these computationally intensive tasks before surgery, the system ensures high surgical planning precision while allowing the actual surgical procedure to proceed without time-consuming calculations during the operation.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The system creates digital 3D models and virtual representations of both bone and soft tissue structures from patient-specific CT data. These digital copies allow for detailed analysis, measurement, and surgical simulation without requiring repeated processing of the actual patient data, thereby improving planning precision while reducing redundant computation time.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #26Copying

3Measurement precision

If the system provides comprehensive implant selection recommendations based on multiple parameters, then the implant selection accuracy improves, but the decision-making complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveimplant selection accuracyVSAvoiddecision-making complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
Measurement precisionVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The system provides customized implant recommendations tailored to specific local anatomical conditions. It analyzes local soft tissue dimensions, bone characteristics, and joint geometry to suggest appropriate implant types and sizes for each patient's unique anatomy, thereby improving implant selection accuracy while presenting information in a localized, context-specific manner that reduces overall decision complexity.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #3Local quality

Solution Approach 2:

The system evaluates multiple parameters (soft tissue dimensions, bone density, joint geometry) and transforms them into simplified implant selection criteria. By converting complex multidimensional anatomical data into discrete implant size and type recommendations, the system improves selection accuracy while reducing the complexity of the final decision-making process for surgeons.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #35Parameter changes

Data Source

PatentEP3893787B1Bone density modeling and orthopedic surgical planning system
Publication Date: 2025.09.10 HOWMEDICA OSTEONICS CORP
  • EP3893787B1 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP3893787B1 patent drawingFigure 2
  • EP3893787B1 patent drawingFigure 3

AI summary

A surgical planning system for use in surgical procedures to repair an anatomy of interest includes a preplanning system to generate a virtual surgical plan and a mixed reality system that includes a visualization device wearable by a user to view the virtual surgical plan projected in a real environment. The virtual surgical plan includes a 3D virtual model of the anatomy of interest. When wearing the visualization device, the user can align the 3D virtual model with the real anatomy of interest, thereby achieving a registration between details of the virtual surgical plan and the real anatomy of interest. The registration enables a surgeon to implement the virtual surgical plan on the real anatomy of interest without the use of tracking markers.