Bone Prosthesis with Graft Channels for Integration
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Solution Overview
Problem
Prostheses made of titanium and its alloys often suffer from mechanical breakage and poor integration with bone tissue at osteotomy planes, leading to compromised functionality, especially under high loads, such as in pelvis prostheses.
Innovation Solution
A prosthesis design featuring a body with external fixing wings and channels to accommodate vascularized bone grafts or substitutes, which integrate with the bone tissue, enhancing structural characteristics and stability through a fine-mesh trabecular structure and bridge elements for secure anchoring.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If a prosthesis is made of titanium and/or alloys thereof to enable customization and perfect matching with osteotomy lines, then the prosthesis can be perfectly customized for the specific patient, but the prosthesis is subject to mechanical breakage and poor integration with existing bone tissue at osteotomy planes in the long term
Solution Approach 1:
The prosthesis combines titanium (or titanium alloys) with biological materials such as bone grafts, bone substitutes, or stem cells to create a composite structure. The titanium portion provides structural strength and customization, while the biological materials integrated into channels and cavities promote bone ingrowth and biological integration, thereby improving long-term reliability and reducing mechanical breakage risk
Solution Approach 2:
The prosthesis incorporates porous structures (channels, cavities, or trabecular-like patterns) that allow bone tissue to grow into and through the prosthesis body. This porous architecture increases the surface area for bone attachment, improves mechanical interlocking, and facilitates biological integration, thus enhancing long-term durability while maintaining the titanium base material's strength
2Reliability
If the prosthesis integrates with bone tissue, then integration occurs, but the integration is usually superficial and affects only a few millimeters of thickness, making it difficult to make major modifications to structural characteristics
Solution Approach 1:
The prosthesis is divided into distinct functional zones: external fixing wings for initial mechanical fixation, channels/cavities for biological material placement, and a body structure for load bearing. This segmentation allows independent optimization of each zone - the biological materials in channels provide deep integration, while the titanium structure maintains structural characteristics and can be modified without compromising integration
3Reliability
If the prosthesis is designed with channels to receive grafts and biological materials, then deep integration with bone tissue is enabled, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The channels and cavities in the prosthesis serve multiple functions: they provide pathways for bone graft insertion, accommodate bone substitutes or stem cells, facilitate vascularization, and promote bone ingrowth. This multi-functionality reduces the need for separate components, thereby limiting the increase in overall device complexity while achieving deep bone integration
Data Source
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AI summary
A bone prosthesis (1), comprising a prosthesis body (2) which is adapted to be coupled to a bone (10) and which comprises, for this purpose, at least one fixing wing (8A, 8B) which protrudes externally from the body (2) for screw fixing on the bone (10); at least one channel (3) is open onto the prosthesis body (2) and is designed to receive a graft, preferably an autologous vascularized bone tissue and/or bank bone and/or bone substitutes and/or stem cells and/or fasciae and/or muscles and/or a device with an antimicrobial capability or function, the channel (3) extending up to perimetric edges (21) of the body (2), the prosthesis (1) further comprising a bridge element (7) which is mounted transversely to the channel (3).