Date on Master's Thesis/Doctoral Dissertation

5-2017

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Degree Name

M. Eng.

Department

Bioengineering

Committee Chair

El-Baz, Ayman

Committee Co-Chair (if applicable)

Prater, Glen

Committee Member

Prater, Glen

Committee Member

Roussel, Thomas

Committee Member

Voor, Michael

Committee Member

Seligson, David

Abstract

Preparation of long bones such as the femur or tibia for placement of intramedullary devices for the treatment of fractures usually involves reaming with a series of central cutters driven by a drill-like device with a flexible shaft over a guide wire. The reamers sequentially enlarge the intramedullary canal into a tunnel of circular cross-section and a diameter appropriate for the procedure. The current technology is concentric, meaning that the system is self-centering within the original intramedullary canal and the expansion is symmetric with respect to the original centerline. A novel system for laterally deflecting the head of a 12mm Stryker Bixcut reaming system has been designed in order to test the proof of concept for eccentrically reaming the intramedullary canal of a long bone. Reaming often precedes intramedullary nail placement following a long bone fracture or to induce ankle arthrodesis. Long bones do not always contain a regularly shaped intramedullary canal, thus creating a risk in navigating a reamer through the bone. Pockets of infected tissue and malformed fractures may also create obstacles for advancing a reamer through the canal. The newly developed reaming system is intended to allow the surgeon to be more selective in where the reamer head cuts while shaping the inner wall of the intramedullary canal to avoid or target certain areas of the canal. Development of the directional reaming system included two prototypes with three sets of experiments to quantify the success of the designs. The first experiment resulted in a prototype unable to achieve the specified 3mm of lateral cutting depth. The second experiment also failed to achieve the 3mm of lateral cutting depth, but did yield a proof of concept driving the design of the third iteration. Creation of the third prototype concludes the project with experimentation that was completed in early May of 2017.

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