System and device for designing and forming a surgical implant
OwnerRobert E. Isaacsinventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method is provided for determining the shape of a surgical linking device that is to be attached to a bony body structure such as the spinal column based on digitized locations of a plurality of attachment means engaged to the bony structure. The method is implemented by a computer system through a GUI to generate an initial bend curve to mate with the plurality of attachment means. The initial bend curve may be simplified based on user input to the GUI to reduce the number of bends necessary to produce a well-fitting linking device and may be altered to help obtain the goals of the surgery.
Claims17
A method for shaping a surgical linking device for engagement to at plurality of attachment means engaged within selected bony body structure, each of the attachment means having an engagement portion for engagement with the shaped linking device, comprising:
- (a) providing digitized data for the location of the plurality of attachment means;
- (b) determining a tolerance range corresponding to an acceptable distance that the shaped linking device is from the engagement portion of each attachment means;
- (c) developing a curve function to approximate the location of each of the plurality of attachment means;
- (d) calculating the location of the linking device shaped according to the curve function at the location of each of the plurality of attachment means;
- (e) calculating an error based on the difference in the calculated location of the linking device and the location of each of the plurality of attachment means;
- (f) determining if the error exceeds the tolerance range and if so determining a higher order curve function;
- (g) when the error falls within the tolerance range, generating a bend curve having a discrete plurality of bend points using the curve function, the discrete plurality of bend points being distributed at a predetermined distance;
- (h) reducing the number of bend points by eliminating certain bend points and replacing the removed bend points with a straight line between the next immediately adjacent remaining bend points;
- (i) generating a revised bend curve with the remaining bend points;
- and
- (j) generating bending instructions to be performed on the linking device by a bending tool at each of the remaining bend points.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.