Pre-assembled Bone Plate Drill Guide Tips for Surgical Alignment
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
The existing methods for aligning and fixing metaphyseal fractures, such as plating, require laborious and time-consuming processes for attaching drill guides to bone plates, especially when dealing with multiple bone fragments, as they need to be aligned with each peg hole, which can prolong surgical procedures.
Innovation Solution
Pre-assembling drill guide tips into the threaded holes of the bone plate, allowing them to be positioned correctly without needing to thread the guide during surgery, using either a nest of pins or individual guidance, and providing options for reusable or disposable tips that can function alone or with an extension for drilling.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If drill guides are attached to bone plates during surgery, then accurate alignment of peg holes is achieved, but surgical procedure time is prolonged
Solution Approach 1:
The drill guide tips are pre-assembled into the threaded holes of the bone plate before surgery. This preliminary assembly allows the drill guides to be ready for immediate use during the surgical procedure, eliminating the time-consuming process of attaching them during the operation while maintaining accurate alignment precision.
Solution Approach 2:
The drill guide is divided into separate tips that can be independently assembled into each threaded hole of the bone plate. This segmentation allows for pre-assembly of individual components without requiring the entire drill guide system to be attached during surgery, thus reducing procedural time while maintaining alignment accuracy.
2Ease of manufacture
If drill guide tips are made short to avoid interference, then they can be pre-assembled without interfering with adjacent structure, but their drilling guidance capability is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
A drill guide extension is introduced as an intermediary component that attaches to the pre-assembled drill guide tip. The extension provides the necessary length for accurate drilling guidance while the short tip remains suitable for pre-assembly without interfering with adjacent structure or plate components.
Solution Approach 2:
The drill guide system is segmented into a short tip component for pre-assembly and a separate extension component for drilling guidance. This segmentation allows each component to be optimized for its specific function: the short tip for easy pre-assembly and the extension for accurate drilling guidance.
Data Source
AI summary
Removable drill guide tips are pre-assembled into threaded holes of a bone plate. The tips may be used with an extension to together function as a conventional drill guide. After drilling, the extension or another tool is used to remove the tips from the plate. According to another use, the tip is used as a guide for a drill bit without any additional extension and then removed with a tool.