Spinal Inserter With Rotating Grip Activator
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current spinal surgical techniques face limitations in minimally invasive procedures due to bulky and cumbersome instrumentation, which hinders precise movement and placement of implants within the vertebral space, leading to reduced surgeon visualization and increased complexity.
Innovation Solution
A surgical inserter with a handle, gripper mechanism, and deployment mechanism that allows for precise placement and deployment of implants, featuring a grip activator to control the gripper arms and an anti-deployment mechanism to ensure controlled implant deployment, enabling minimally invasive procedures through various approaches.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional open surgical techniques are used, then surgical stability and implant placement reliability are improved, but soft tissue trauma and operative time increase
Solution Approach 1:
The surgical system is divided into separate modular components including the inserter, implant, and deployment mechanism. This allows the implant to be inserted through a minimally invasive approach while the deployment occurs after the inserter is removed, maintaining reliability without requiring large incisions or extensive soft tissue retraction throughout the entire procedure.
Solution Approach 2:
The implant is pre-loaded into the inserter before the surgical procedure begins. This preliminary preparation allows the implant to be delivered through a small incision site, avoiding the need for large open exposures and reducing soft tissue trauma while ensuring the implant is ready for precise placement.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If minimally invasive techniques are used, then soft tissue trauma is reduced, but device complexity and difficulty of implant deployment increase
Solution Approach 1:
The implant is nested within the inserter device, with the deployment mechanism contained within the inserter structure. This nested configuration allows the complex deployment mechanism to be delivered through a minimally invasive approach, reducing soft tissue trauma while containing the complexity within a compact delivery system.
Solution Approach 2:
The inserter device is extracted and removed from the body after implant placement, leaving only the implant behind. This extraction approach allows the complex inserter mechanism to be used during insertion without requiring the complexity to remain in the body, reducing long-term complications while enabling minimally invasive delivery.
3Reliability
If bulky instrumentation is used, then implant deployment control is improved, but surgeon visualization and maneuverability within surgical space are reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The inserter device incorporates dynamic components including rotatable elements and movable deployment mechanisms that can be actuated within a compact form factor. This allows effective deployment control without requiring a bulky static structure, improving maneuverability and surgeon visualization while maintaining deployment reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
The deployment mechanism utilizes rotational motion and three-dimensional positioning capabilities to achieve precise implant deployment from a compact inserter. This dimensional approach allows effective control without increasing the overall footprint of the device within the surgical field, improving surgeon visualization and maneuverability.
4Manufacturing precision
If traditional surgical approaches are used, then implant placement precision is improved, but operative time and surgical complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The implant is pre-loaded and positioned within the inserter before the surgical procedure. This preliminary preparation ensures precise alignment and positioning capabilities are already established, allowing rapid and accurate implant placement without requiring time-consuming intraoperative adjustments or complex positioning maneuvers.
Solution Approach 2:
The system replaces complex mechanical positioning and adjustment mechanisms with a pre-loaded, guided insertion approach. This substitution maintains implant placement precision by relying on the pre-established geometry of the inserter-implant interface rather than requiring complex intraoperative mechanical adjustments, thereby reducing operative time.
Data Source
AI summary
A surgical inserter for use in inserting an implant into a vertebral space may include: (a) a handle; (b) a gripper having one end attached to the handle and a second end having a pair of arms; and (c) a grip activator having an opening that threadingly receives the gripper. The grip activator can be rotated in a first direction with respect to the gripper to cause the arms to move toward each other to grip the inserter and in a second direction with respect to the gripper to cause the arms to move away from each other to release the inserter. In one embodiment a compression force activator is used to deploy the implant and in another embodiment a tension force activator is used to deploy the implant.