Cartilage Repair Kit Guide Tool Positioning
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for repairing damaged cartilage in joints, such as the knee, face challenges in achieving precise implant placement and integration, leading to potential misalignment, increased wear, and prolonged recovery times.
Innovation Solution
A surgical kit comprising a custom-made plate-shaped implant and a set of tools, including a guide tool with a positioning body and insert tools, designed to facilitate precise placement and minimize tissue damage, using a guide channel and insert tools with tolerances for sliding movement, and optional drill and reamer bits for accurate drilling and reaming.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional cartilage repair methods (microfractures, ACI, periost flap, mosaic plasty) are used, then cartilage repair is attempted, but the results are limited with high cost, infection risk, loosening risk, and prolonged recovery time
Solution Approach 1:
The surgical kit segments the complex cartilage repair procedure into distinct functional components: guide tool for precise positioning, insert tools for controlled insertion, and specialized drill/reamer bits for bone preparation. This segmentation allows each tool to optimize its specific function, improving overall repair reliability while reducing surgical time and recovery period.
Solution Approach 2:
The guide tool is designed to pre-establish the exact implant position and orientation before the actual implant insertion. The positioning body with cartilage contact surface and guide channel with muzzle pre-defines the insertion path, ensuring accurate placement from the outset and eliminating the need for complex intraoperative adjustments, thereby reducing surgical time and improving reliability.
2Ease of operation
If implant placement precision is not optimized, then implant insertion is simpler, but misalignment occurs leading to increased wear, edge projection above cartilage surface, and joint articulation problems
Solution Approach 1:
The guide tool acts as an intermediary device between the surgeon and the implant. It includes a positioning body that contacts the cartilage surface and a guide channel that directs the insert tool and implant. This intermediary ensures precise implant placement without requiring the surgeon to directly manipulate the implant with high precision, thus maintaining ease of operation while achieving manufacturing-level precision.
Solution Approach 2:
The guide channel is designed with specific geometric parameters (cross-sectional profile matching the implant, controlled muzzle position, and defined channel angle) that directly control the implant's final position and orientation. By carefully selecting these parameters, the system achieves precise implant placement while keeping the insertion process simple and straightforward.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If smaller implants are used to minimize influence on surrounding joint parts, then joint preservation is improved, but precise positioning becomes more critical and difficult to achieve
Solution Approach 1:
The positioning body of the guide tool is designed to copy or replicate the contour of the cartilage surface in the predetermined area surrounding the diseased cartilage. This copying function ensures that the guide tool accurately reflects the patient's specific anatomy, allowing precise positioning of even small implants while minimizing influence on surrounding healthy joint parts.
Solution Approach 2:
The surgical kit provides localized precision through the guide channel's specific geometry and the positioning body's contoured design. These features are tailored to the local cartilage surface characteristics, ensuring that small implants are positioned with high precision exactly where needed, while leaving the surrounding joint structures undisturbed and unaffected.
4Ease of operation
If implant surface projects above cartilage surface, then implant insertion is easier, but joint articulation becomes uneven causing increased load on opposing joint points and pain
Solution Approach 1:
The guide tool's positioning body with its contoured cartilage contact surface provides geometric feedback during positioning. The guide channel's muzzle position and angle are designed to ensure that when the insert tool follows the guide channel, the implant surface will be flush with the surrounding cartilage surface, preventing projection above the cartilage and avoiding joint articulation problems.
Data Source
AI summary
A surgical kit for cartilage repair at an articulating surface of a joint, including a medical implant and a set of tools. The medical implant includes a substantially plate shaped implant body having a predetermined cross-section that substantially corresponds to the area of the damaged cartilage. The set of tools includes a guide tool including a positioning body and a guide channel. The positioning body has a cartilage contact surface that has a shape and contour that is designed to correspond to and to fit the contour of the cartilage or subchondral bone in the joint in a predetermined area surrounding the site of diseased cartilage. The guide channel has a cross-sectional profile that is designed to correspond to the cross-section of the plate shaped implant body. Additional tools in the set of tools have a cross-sectional profile that is designed to correspond to the cross-sectional profile of the guide channel.