Surgical Drill Guide Keyway Axial Alignment Orthopedic Plate
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing surgical drill guides are cumbersome and difficult to use, especially when positioning fasteners at specific angles in bone tissue, as they either require cumbersome screwing into threaded holes or do not guarantee the angle of the screw relative to the plate, particularly in complex orthopedic implants with non-planar designs.
Innovation Solution
A surgical drill guide with a distal end that forms a removable key fit interface with the plate, featuring multiple lobes or projections that mate with corresponding recesses to securely hold the drill guide at a specified angle, allowing easy insertion and rotation, while also providing a means to determine drill depth and position the fastener hole accurately.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If a drill guide is screwed into a threaded hole to set the screw angle, then the angle is accurately controlled, but the operation becomes cumbersome and time-consuming
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces the threaded screwing mechanism with a tapered interference fit mechanism. The drill guide features a tapered distal end that fits into a corresponding tapered recess in the plate, eliminating the need for threading and screwing operations while maintaining precise angular control through the geometric constraint of the tapered interface.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts the threading function from the drill guide interface, separating the angular positioning function from the attachment function. The tapered fit provides attachment while dedicated positioning features (such as keyed interfaces or geometric constraints) provide angular alignment, simplifying the overall operation.
2Ease of operation
If a tapered fit is used for the drill guide interface, then insertion is easy, but the screw angle is not guaranteed
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs asymmetric geometric features in the interface between the drill guide and plate. The tapered fit is combined with non-circular cross-sectional features (such as rectangular, D-shaped, or keyed interfaces) that prevent rotation and ensure the drill guide maintains a specific angular orientation relative to the plate, thereby guaranteeing the screw angle while preserving easy insertion.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent adds angular constraint in a rotational dimension to the tapered fit interface. While the tapered fit provides axial insertion ease, additional geometric features constrain the rotational degree of freedom, ensuring the drill guide is positioned at the correct angle without complicating the insertion process.
3Adaptability or versatility
If multiple drill guides are used for different angles, then various fastener positions are accommodated, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent designs the plate with a universal interface system that can accommodate multiple drill guides with different angular orientations. The standardized tapered recesses with angular variations allow a single plate design to work with multiple specialized drill guides, or potentially with a multi-position drill guide that can be rotated to different predetermined angles, reducing the need for multiple unique drill guide designs.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent enables dynamic selection of drill guide orientation through features such as rotatable components or interchangeable inserts that can be positioned at different angles. This allows a single drill guide device to adapt to multiple fastener position requirements by changing its orientation or configuration rather than requiring separate fixed-angle guides for each position.
Data Source
AI summary
A surgical drill guide for positioning, aligning, and of holes to be drilled in bone tissue has retaining means that holds the position and alignment of the drill guide body in a releasable manner with respect to a fastener hole in an orthopedic implant. The retaining means is a key guide that mates with a key way or key ways in or around a threaded locking hole of an orthopedic plate for alignment of a pilot hole and method of using the guide. The key guide has 2 to 8 projections that extend in the direction of the axis of the hole, such as hemi cylindrical projections, and the plate has a corresponding female key way that receives the retaining means. The invention also relates to a method of aligning a locking fastener in a plate at a desired angle relative to a bone by using a surgical guide having a key interface with the plate to position and align a pilot hole.