Bone Plate Shaping with Pre-Assembled Guide Tips
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current surgical plating systems for bone fractures are laborious and inefficient, particularly in aligning drill guides with threaded holes and reshaping plates to fit complex bone anatomy, often distorting threads and requiring cumbersome procedures.
Innovation Solution
Pre-assembling drill guide tips into threaded holes of bone plates, allowing for easier alignment and reshaping of plates in three dimensions without interfering with adjacent structures, and using bending tools with guide tips to contour the plate directly on the bone.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If drill guides are attached to the plate during the surgical procedure, then alignment of drill holes with threaded holes is achieved, but the surgical procedure becomes laborious and time-consuming
Solution Approach 1:
The drill guide is pre-assembled into the threaded hole of the bone plate before the surgical procedure. This preliminary assembly eliminates the need for attaching the drill guide during surgery, reducing surgical time while maintaining precise alignment between the drill hole and threaded hole through the pre-positioned guide.
2Shape
If the plate is reshaped to fit complex bone anatomy, then anatomical fit is improved, but the threads may be distorted
Solution Approach 1:
The bone plate is divided into shapeable portions and non-shapeable portions. The non-shapeable portions contain the threaded holes and are protected from deformation, while the shapeable portions can be contoured to fit complex bone anatomy. This segmentation allows the plate to achieve better anatomical fit without distorting the threads in the non-shapeable regions.
3Adaptability or versatility
If multiple threaded holes are provided in the plate, then fixation capability is improved, but the complexity of aligning and using the plate increases
Solution Approach 1:
Multiple drill guides are pre-assembled into the threaded holes of the bone plate during manufacturing. This preliminary action simplifies the surgical procedure by eliminating the need for repeated attachment and alignment of drill guides for each threaded hole, reducing operational complexity while maintaining enhanced fixation capability through multiple holes.
Data Source
AI summary
Removable guide tips are pre-assembled into threaded holes of a fracture fixation plate. The guide tips may be used with or without drill guides to guide a drill along the axes of threaded holes defined in the plate. In addition, the tips may be used with bending tools to contour the plate laterally, longitudinally and with twist. More particularly, such plate contouring can be performed while the plate is located on the bone.