Multi-Functional Cannula for Bone Tissue Evaluation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for fracture fixation in porotic bone lack a standardized, efficient procedure and toolkit that combines necessary steps, leading to issues such as bone cement leakage into joints and the need for multiple instruments, which complicates surgical decision-making and increases invasiveness.
Innovation Solution
A multi-functional cannula that can be inserted without drilling, allowing for measurement, irrigation, and bone cement injection, serving as a guide wire for instruments or implants, and featuring a design that prevents contamination and allows for the use of sensitive measuring sensors and bio-resorbable obturators for minimally invasive procedures.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If a guide wire is previously inserted for guiding surgical tools, then the implant can be positioned accurately, but the guide wire perforates into the joint leaving a channel that allows bone cement to advance into the joint
Solution Approach 1:
The cannula serves as an intermediary device that replaces the guide wire for the cement injection step. It provides a controlled pathway for cement delivery without creating the problematic perforation channel that guide wires leave in the joint space.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention extracts the cement delivery function from the guide wire procedure. Instead of using the guide wire itself for cement injection, a separate cannula is used specifically for this purpose, eliminating the channel formation problem while maintaining accurate positioning.
2Reliability
If multiple different instruments are used for drilling, measuring, irrigating, and cement injection, then each function can be performed adequately, but the number of instruments to be inserted and removed from the bore hole increases
Solution Approach 1:
The cannula merges multiple functions (positioning guide, measurement conduit, irrigation channel, and cement delivery pathway) into a single instrument. This eliminates the need to repeatedly insert and remove multiple different tools while maintaining the reliability of each surgical step.
Solution Approach 2:
The cannula is designed as a universal instrument that performs multiple functions throughout the surgical procedure. It serves as a positioning guide during drilling, a conduit for measurement sensors, a channel for irrigation, and a pathway for cement injection, replacing several specialized tools with one multi-functional device.
3Productivity
If the cannula lumen is open at the distal end for cement injection, then cement can be delivered effectively, but the lumen becomes contaminated with bone chips during insertion
Solution Approach 1:
The obturator is inserted into the cannula lumen before the cannula is introduced into the bone. This preliminary action protects the open distal end of the lumen from bone chip contamination during the insertion process, while allowing the lumen to remain open for effective cement delivery afterward.
Solution Approach 2:
The obturator acts as a temporary intermediary protective element within the cannula lumen. It shields the open distal opening from contamination during insertion, then is removed to allow clean cement delivery through the uncontaminated lumen.
Data Source
AI summary
A cannula with a proximal end, a distal end and a lumen penetrating from the proximal end to the distal end. The cannula includes a shaft portion including a rear end and a front end, a tip portion coaxially extending from the front end of the shaft portion to the distal end of the cannula, and a cutting edge. A coupling portion, which is suitable for being connected to a surgical tool or instrument, is terminally arranged towards the proximal end of the cannula and extends to the rear end of the shaft portion. A removable obturator is insertable in the lumen. The obturator seals the lumen at the distal end of the cannula. A method for improved fracture fixation using the cannula, a method for intraoperative surgical decision making using the cannula and a method for irrigation of bone tissue and subsequent injection of bone cement using the cannula.