Flexible Anchor Extender Minimizes Tissue Trauma
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for stabilizing bone structures through minimally invasive techniques often require tissue repositioning, leading to trauma, scarring, infection risks, and prolonged recovery due to the need for skin and tissue incisions.
Innovation Solution
A system comprising bone anchors and anchor extenders that flex or bend to accommodate a connecting element, allowing its placement adjacent to bones without additional incisions, using a minimally invasive approach to stabilize bony structures like the spinal column.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional stabilization devices are installed through open surgery, then reliable bone structure stabilization is achieved, but tissue trauma, scarring, and recovery time increase
Solution Approach 1:
The stabilization system is divided into separate components: bone anchors that are implanted first, followed by connecting elements that are inserted through the anchor extenders. This segmentation allows for minimally invasive anchor placement while maintaining reliable stabilization through the separate connecting element insertion.
Solution Approach 2:
The connecting element is inserted through the anchor extender, which acts as a delivery mechanism. The anchor extender is inserted through a small incision, and the connecting element is nested within it during insertion, allowing the connecting element to reach the bone anchors through a minimally invasive pathway without requiring large incisions.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If minimally invasive techniques are used with rigid anchor extenders, then tissue disruption is reduced, but the connecting element cannot be properly positioned or oriented
Solution Approach 1:
The anchor extender is designed with flexible or articulating sections that allow it to change its configuration dynamically. As the connecting element is inserted and manipulated within the anchor extender, the flexible sections bend and articulate to accommodate the movement and orientation changes of the connecting element, enabling proper positioning while maintaining a minimally invasive approach.
Solution Approach 2:
The anchor extender incorporates flexible materials and thin-walled structures that allow bending and deformation. This flexibility enables the anchor extender to conform to the curvature of the connecting element and to allow the connecting element to be oriented in the desired direction while passing through the minimally invasive incision site.
3Ease of operation
If the anchor extender is made flexible to accommodate connecting element manipulation, then positioning ease is improved, but structural strength and stability may be compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The anchor extender is designed with different structural properties in different sections. The proximal and distal portions that engage with the bone anchors and require stability are made rigid and strong, while the intermediate sections are made flexible to allow manipulation of the connecting element. This local differentiation of structural quality allows the extender to provide both flexibility for manipulation and strength for stability where needed.
Solution Approach 2:
The anchor extender may be constructed using composite materials or a combination of materials with different mechanical properties. This allows certain portions to exhibit flexibility for manipulating the connecting element while other portions maintain rigidity and strength for stable engagement with the bone anchors, resolving the contradiction between flexibility and strength.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach minimizes tissue disruption, reduces recovery time, and decreases post-operative pain by enabling the stabilization of bone structures through a minimally invasive method, reducing the need for extensive muscle dissection and anesthesia.
Implementation Method 1
the anchor extender flexes, bends or otherwise reconfigures to a axially non-linear configuration
Data Source
AI summary
There is disclosed a system for positioning a connecting element adjacent one or more bones or bony portions, such as the spinal column, through a minimally invasive surgical approach. The system generally includes at least one bone anchor engageable to the one or more bones or bony portions and at least one anchor extender removably engaged to the bone anchor. A connecting element is movable along a longitudinal axis of the anchor extender. In response to movement of the connecting element along the longitudinal axis toward the bone anchor, the anchor extender flexes, bends or otherwise reconfigures to allow a leading end of the connecting element to be rotated away from the longitudinal axis so that the connecting element can be positioned in a transverse orientation to the longitudinal axis along the one or more bones or bony portions at a location adjacent the bone anchor.