Patient-Specific Insertion Guide for Precise Cranial Bone Access
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current minimally-invasive surgical guides are not adaptable enough to the unique anatomy of each patient, leading to precision issues and potential injuries during surgeries, particularly in accessing complex structures like the cranial vault.
Innovation Solution
A personalized surgical insertion guide with a 3D-printed platform that matches the patient's fixation bone surface, allowing precise positioning and defining a 3D insertion referential for minimally-invasive device insertion, using a guide platform with internal and external surfaces designed through geometrical analysis and 3D modeling.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If external global guides are used for cranial vault access, then surgical access can be obtained, but precision and adaptability to individual patient anatomy are compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The guide platform is designed and manufactured before surgery based on pre-operative imaging data (CT or MRI scans) of the patient's specific anatomy. This preliminary customization allows the guide to be perfectly adapted to the individual patient's cranial vault geometry, ensuring both adaptability and precision during the actual surgical procedure
Solution Approach 2:
The guide platform creates a precise copy or replica of the patient's specific anatomical features (such as the temporal bone surface) through 3D modeling from medical imaging data. This copying approach allows the guide to match the unique anatomy of each patient while maintaining manufacturing precision through digital modeling and additive manufacturing
2Reliability
If complex stereotaxic systems and CT scans are used during surgery, then access to internal structures can be achieved, but surgical complexity and procedure time increase
Solution Approach 1:
All complex planning, modeling, and customization work is completed before surgery through 3D imaging and computational design. The guide platform is manufactured in advance with pre-calculated insertion trajectories and anatomical references, eliminating the need for complex stereotaxic systems and intraoperative CT scans, thereby reducing surgical complexity while maintaining reliability
Solution Approach 2:
The guide platform incorporates built-in anatomical references, alignment features, and trajectory guidance that enable the surgical team to perform minimally invasive procedures without requiring external complex stereotaxic equipment. The guide serves its own alignment and positioning functions through its design, reducing dependency on additional complex systems
3Object-affected harmful factors
If minimally-invasive techniques are used, then tissue damage is reduced, but precision in accessing deep structures like the cochlea is compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The guide platform features locally optimized structures including patient-specific contact surfaces that match the temporal bone geometry, precisely positioned insertion channels aligned with calculated optimal trajectories, and localized fixation elements. This local customization ensures high precision for minimally invasive access to deep structures like the cochlea while minimizing damage to surrounding tissues
Solution Approach 2:
The guide platform incorporates three-dimensional spatial reasoning and positioning, using 3D printed structures that account for complex spatial relationships between surface landmarks and deep targets. By transitioning from two-dimensional surface guidance to three-dimensional volumetric guidance, the system achieves high precision insertion accuracy while maintaining minimally invasive benefits
Data Source
AI summary
A personalized insertion guide for the mini-invasive insertion of a device through a target bone, includes a guide platform securable to a fixation bone, presenting an internal bone contact surface being a matching negative of the fixation bone surface in order to allow one single precise positioning of it. At least one insertion channel is configured to receive the device. At least one bone fixation structure secures the guide platform to the fixation bone. The guide platform is designed by means of a presurgical modelling of the fixation bone, based on a geometrical analysis of its surface. The guide enables, once positioned on the fixation bone, to set the origin of a referential with regards to a biological target element inside the body. The guide platform includes a first part and second part extending in two different plans.