System and device for keeping bone screws ready

#The invention relates to a device for keeping bone screws ready for a surgical operation. The invention further relates to a system for keeping bone screws ready, containing the keeping-ready device and a removal instrument for removing kept-ready bone screws from the keeping-ready device.

#Conventional keeping-ready devices for bone screws comprise a pick-up sheet provided with a multiplicity of orifices for inserting bone screws. The diameters of these orifices are chosen in such a way that on the one hand they are larger than the diameter of a screw shank, but on the other hand smaller than the diameter of a screw head. When a bone screw is inserted into one of the orifices, with an underside of the screw head facing the pick-up sheet the bone screw consequently comes into contact with the surface of the sheet.

#Bone screws kept ready in this way are picked up from the sheet during a surgical operation by means of a suitable removal instrument, e.g. by a screw driver, and then screwed into a bone or into a fragment of a bone.

#Further advantages and configurations of the invention emerge from the following description of preferred embodiment examples and the figures.

#FIG. 1 shows a perspective view of a keeping-ready device according to the invention for bone screws, bone plates, etc.

#FIG. 2 shows an aspect on to the keeping-ready device according to FIG. 1.

#An embodiment of a system for keeping ready bone screws according to the invention is described below. The keeping-ready system according to the invention comprises in the example case different types of bone screws and removal instruments. The invention could also be used in combination with other bone screws or removal instruments.

#In FIG. 1 a perspective view of a keeping-ready device 10 for bone screws according to the invention is illustrated in the empty state, i.e. without bone screws kept ready. The device 10 comprises a keeping-ready plate 12 and an accommodating frame 14 for the plate 12. By means of the frame 14 the plate 12 is positioned a few centimetres above a support plane (e.g. an operating table) of the frame 14. In addition to an accommodating area for the plate 12, a multiplicity of orifices 18 for accommodating bone plates, surgical instruments, such as screw drivers, etc., is constructed in a surface 16 of the frame 14. According to an alternative embodiment of the invention the device 10 is cut out of a single piece (e.g. a block of aluminium).

#FIG. 2 shows an aspect on to the keeping-ready device 10 according to FIG. 1. In FIG. 2 it can be clearly seen that the plate 12 has a surface 20 in which a multiplicity of orifices 22 is arranged like a grid. In the case illustrated in FIG. 2 the ratio of the total area of the surface 20 including the area of the orifices 22 to the total area of the orifices 22 is approximately 1:3.