Spinal Navigational Guide with Lamina Contact
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current patient-specific surgical guides for spinal surgery require extensive preparation of the spinous process area, including ligament severance, which is time-consuming, invasive, and prone to complications, leading to potential guide slippage and suboptimal positioning of pedicle screws or bone resections.
Innovation Solution
A patient-specific navigational guide with multiple contact points, excluding the spinous process, providing stability through a V-shaped bridge and auxiliary contact members that match the vertebra's anatomy, allowing for secure positioning without ligament severance, thus reducing surgical steps and complications.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Stability of the object's composition
If the guide uses the spinous process as the main contact point to achieve stability, then the guide positioning stability is improved, but the surgical complexity and invasiveness increase due to the need to clean and sever ligaments
Solution Approach 1:
The invention extracts the guide stability from dependence on the spinous process and its ligaments. By designing contact members that engage with the lamina and transverse processes instead, the guide achieves stability without requiring severance of the interspinous and supraspinous ligaments, thus eliminating the harmful surgical preparation steps while maintaining positioning stability.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention applies different contact strategies to different anatomical locations. Instead of using a single contact point on the spinous process, the guide employs multiple contact members (at least four) that distribute engagement across the lamina and transverse processes, each providing localized stability without requiring invasive preparation.
2Measurement precision
If the surgeon performs extensive cleaning and ligament severance to prepare the spinous process area, then the guide positioning accuracy is improved, but the surgical time and patient trauma increase
Solution Approach 1:
The invention removes the requirement for extensive soft tissue preparation by extracting the guide's stabilizing function from the spinous process area. The contact members engage with the lamina and transverse processes, which do not require ligament severance, thereby maintaining positioning accuracy while eliminating time-consuming and traumatic preparation steps.
Solution Approach 2:
The guide design incorporates pre-configured contact members that are shaped to match the natural anatomy of the lamina and transverse processes. This preliminary design allows the guide to achieve accurate positioning through simple placement without requiring preliminary surgical preparation of the contact surfaces.
3Device complexity
If the guide uses fewer contact points to simplify the design, then the device complexity is reduced, but the stability and reliability of guide positioning deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The invention segments the guide into multiple independent contact members (at least four) that engage with different anatomical structures (lamina and transverse processes). This segmentation provides redundant stabilization points, ensuring that if one contact area is damaged or insufficient, the guide maintains reliability through the other contact members without requiring complex overall design.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention changes the parameter of contact point distribution by placing multiple contact members at different locations on the vertebra (on the lamina and transverse processes). This spatial distribution of contact points enhances reliability without significantly increasing device complexity, as each contact member remains a simple structural element.
Data Source
AI summary
Patient-specific navigational guide (1) for use in spinal surgery, comprising two tubular guiding members (2) integral with a bearing frame (3) and extending from a proximal opening (2a) to a distal opening (2b) for guiding a surgical operation on a patient's vertebra (100); contact members (14, 15, 16) designed to match a corresponding plurality of contact areas (103, 102) on the patient's vertebra (100) in order to define a unique coupling configuration of the patient-specific navigational guide (1) on the patient's vertebra (100), wherein said contact members (14, 15, 16) comprise at east one pair of first main contact members (15), designed to abut on a contact area corresponding to the superior articular process (103) or facet of the patient's vertebra (100) and a pair of second main contact members (16), designed to abut at least partially on a contact area corresponding to the laminae (102) of the patient's vertebra (100). Contact members also comprise auxiliary contact members (14), designed to abut at least partially on a contact area corresponding to the edges (102a) of the patient's vertebra (100), in a position different from that of contact of the pair of the second main contact member (16), or to abut at least partially on a contact area corresponding to the transverse process (104).