Grant: Idea to Innovation

The objective of this project is to develop a 'smart' drilling tool (""SmartDrill"") that can substantially reduce operating room time and virtually eliminate radiation exposure to the surgeon during the distal locking phase of intramedullary (IM) nailing of long bone fractures (see Figure 1), one of the most common procedures performed by orthopaedic surgeons. We have successfully demonstrated in the lab that we can accurately measure the location of the screw holes; by adding a realtime guidance display, we expect to be able to eliminate the radiation exposure of the current procedure and reduce the time needed for distal screw locking from a range of 10-30 minutes to a range of 1-3 minutes. Since operating room time can cost from $20-100/minute, such a reduction is extremely valuable. In this project, we plan to move our prototype system from a lab-based version which is currently capable only of making measurements, but not guiding the surgeon in real time, to a near-manufacturable device with realtime targeting capability and to prove that we can achieve the expected time and radiation reduction benefits in both simulated and live surgical settings. More specifically, we will add realtime targeting and display functions to the tool, refine the mechanical design of the system so that it will be practically usable in the operating room, complete sterility testing of a key internal component of the system, conduct lab-based and cadaver studies of the integrated system, contribute to an external effort to decrease the size and weight of the core sensor technology we plan to use, perform an evaluation of the updated system in the operating room, and file patent applications on anticipated new features.