Patient-Specific Orthopedic Implants Using Preoperative Imaging
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Solution Overview
Problem
Traditional off-the-shelf orthopedic implants often fail to match a patient's unique biological features, leading to complications such as pain, discomfort, and unnatural joint movement due to mismatches, which can result in extended surgery times and increased likelihood of implant failure.
Innovation Solution
Patient-specific and patient-engineered orthopedic implants and guide tools are designed using preoperative imaging data to create customized components that match the patient's anatomy, including optimized surgical cuts and implant features for improved alignment, bone preservation, and joint kinematics.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If standard off-the-shelf implants are used, then device availability and ease of manufacture are improved, but implant reliability and patient comfort deteriorate due to anatomical mismatches
Solution Approach 1:
Patient-specific implants are designed and manufactured before surgery based on preoperative imaging data (CT, MRI, x-ray). The implant geometry is customized to match the patient's unique anatomy in advance, eliminating the need for intraoperative adjustments and ensuring anatomical compatibility from the start.
Solution Approach 2:
The implant design incorporates patient-specific anatomical features at specific locations. By analyzing individual patient imaging data, the implant geometry is locally adapted to match unique bone structures, joint surfaces, and soft tissue attachments, ensuring optimal fit and function for each patient's specific anatomy.
2Reliability
If patient-specific implants are designed and manufactured, then implant reliability and patient comfort are improved, but device complexity and manufacturing time increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patient-specific implant design process creates a digital copy or model of the patient's anatomy from imaging data. This digital replica is then used to generate the customized implant geometry, preserving the unique anatomical features while enabling precise manufacturing through CAD/CAM processes.
Solution Approach 2:
The implant design varies specific geometric parameters based on patient anatomy. By adjusting dimensions, curvatures, and surface features according to individual imaging data, the implant achieves optimal fit without requiring completely novel design approaches for each patient.
3Ease of operation
If standard implants are used, then surgical procedure simplicity is maintained, but surgery time increases due to intraoperative adjustments
Solution Approach 1:
All implant customization and anatomical matching are completed before surgery. The patient-specific implant is designed and manufactured in advance based on imaging data, so the surgeon receives a ready-to-implant device that requires no intraoperative modification or trial fitting.
Solution Approach 2:
The overall treatment process is segmented into distinct phases: preoperative imaging and planning, custom implant design and manufacturing, and straightforward surgical implantation. This separation allows complex design work to be done beforehand, simplifying the actual surgical procedure.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods and devices are disclosed relating improved articular models, implant components, and related guide tools and procedures. In addition, methods and devices are disclosed relating articular models, implant components, and/or related guide tools and procedures that include one or more features derived from patient-data, for example, images of the patient's joint. The data can be used to create a model for analyzing a patient's joint and to devise and evaluate a course of corrective action. The data also can be used to create patient-adapted implant components and related tools and procedures.