Materialise Osteotomy Guides
Materialise's 3D-printed osteotomy guides which will assist orthopaedic surgeons in understanding and executing even the most complex surgeries.
Materialise has been given clearance to develop 3D printed patient-specific surgical guides for radius and ulna osteotomies for children as young as seven-years-old in the United States.
These guides will assist orthopaedic surgeons in understanding and executing even the most complex surgeries. Using the guides in coordination with 3D pre-operative planning, many surgeons have confessed to feeling more confident before and during an operation that the desired outcome will be achieved. Stratasys and the 3DHEART study is conducting research to prove that this is generally the case.
Prior to this Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance, paediatric osteotomy planning was done using X-ray images to draw freehand surgical plans. Whatever the cause, be it by trauma or naturally-occurring, a deformity in a child’s upper extremities can be difficult to fully visualise and plan for. In cases where a child has lost the ability to rotate their forearm, surgical correction can be especially challenging. Typically there has always remained a level of uncertainty when relying on a freehand model - Approximately 60% of osteotomies in the distal-radius actually never obtained the planned the planned correction.
“In bringing this 3D printing technology to paediatric surgery, surgeons will have access to our clinical engineers’ wealth of experience developing osteotomy guides, helping them perform even the most complex bone corrections that will have a positive impact on the rest of the child’s life,” said Bryan Crutchfield, Vice President and General Manager, Materialise North America.
With more than 1,000 clinical osteotomy consultations with adult patients under their belt, Materialise is able to provide their expertise in 3D printed surgical planning for operations on children aged seven and above. Each Materialise 3D printed surgical guide is patient-specific and designed to fit uniquely on the bone of the patient leading to a more predictable outcome.
The Belgian company has worked closely with surgeons and hospitals around the world for nine years to develop and refine the process to implement 3D printed osteotomy guides in complex bone corrections in adults. In expanding this technology to children, Materialise hopes to directly contribute to better and healthier lives for them.
Materialise’s full range of end-to-end 3D printing solutions for the orthopaedic industry, including surgical planning software and patient-specific medical devices, are on display at the AAOS Annual Meeting until March 17th 2017.
