Methods and apparatus for pivotable guide surfaces for arthroplasty
Cutting guides, cutting tools, and soft tissue management techniques permit the use of pivoting guide surfaces to facilitate in controlling the sweep or arc of a cutting tool used in connection with resection and arthroplasty procedures. In accordance with one embodiment, a guide structure is provided with one or more guide pivot aperture(s) and one or more guide pivot reference surface(s) that mate with a bushing assembly controlling a cutting tool. The bushing assembly possesses a bushing reference plan which mates with the pivot reference surface(s) of the guide structure and a bushing pivot pin which mates with the guide pivot aperture(s) of the guide structure. In one embodiment, a bushing guide lumen is operably coupled to the guide structure for articulated and/or axial guidance of the cutting tool.
The present invention claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/551,080, filed Mar. 8, 2004, entitled, “METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR PIVOTABLE GUIDE SURFACES FOR ARTHROPLASTY,” and U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/551,078, filed Mar. 8, 2004, entitled, “METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR MINIMALLY INVASIVE RESECTION,” and U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/551,096, filed Mar. 8, 2004, entitled, “METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR ENHANCED RETENTION OF PROSTHETIC IMPLANTS,” and U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/551,631, filed Mar. 8, 2004, entitled, “METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR CONFORMABLE PROSTHETIC IMPLANTS,” and U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/551,307, filed Mar. 8, 2004, entitled, “METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR IMPROVED CUTTING TOOLS FOR RESECTION,” and U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/551,262, filed Mar. 8, 2004, entitled, “METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR IMPROVED DRILLING AND MILLING TOOLS FOR RESECTION,” and U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/551,160, filed Mar. 8, 2004, entitled, “METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR IMPROVED PROFILE BASED RESECTION,” and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/036,584, filed Jan. 14, 2005, entitled, “METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR PINPLASTY BONE RESECTION,” which claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/536,320, filed Jan. 14, 2004, and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/049,634, filed Feb. 3, 2005, entitled, “METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR WIREPLASTY BONE RESECTION,” which claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/540,992, filed Feb. 2, 2004, entitled, “METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR WIREPLASTY BONE RESECTION,” the entire disclosures of which are hereby fully incorporated by reference.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to methods and apparatus for bone resection to allow for the interconnection or attachment of various prosthetic devices with respect to the patient. More particularly, the present invention relates to the use of pivotable guide surfaces for arthroplasty and bone resection techniques.
2. Background Art
Different methods and apparatus have been developed in the past to enable a surgeon to remove bony material to create specifically shaped surfaces in or on a bone for various reasons including to allow for attachment of various devices or objects to the bone. Keeping in mind that the ultimate goal of any surgical procedure is to restore the body to normal function, it is critical that the quality and orientation of the cut, as well as the quality of fixation, and the location and orientation of objects or devices attached to the bone, is sufficient to ensure proper healing of the body, as well as appropriate mechanical function of the musculoskeletal structure.
In total knee replacements, for example, a series of planar and/or curvilinear surfaces, or “resections,” are created to allow for the attachment of prosthetic or other devices to the femur, tibia and/or patella. In the case of the femur, it is common to use the central axis of the femur, the posterior and distal femoral condyles, and/or the anterior distal femoral cortex as guides to determine the location and orientation of distal femoral resections. The location and orientation of these resections are critical in that they dictate the final location and orientation of the distal femoral implant. It is commonly thought that the location and orientation of the distal femoral implant are critical factors in the success or failure of the artificial knee joint. Additionally, with any surgical procedure, time is critical, and methods and apparatus that can save operating room time, are valuable. Past efforts have not been successful in consistently and/or properly locating and orienting resections in a quick and efficient manner.
Early techniques for bone resection involved the drilling of location holes into the bone to be resected and then pinning a guide plate in a fixed position to the bone using these holes as shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,718,413. The guide plate would include guide surfaces or guide slots for a guiding a planar oscillating saw blade to aid the surgeon in resecting the bone surfaces. Some guide plates have utilized guide pin slots that cooperate with retractable guide pins on the oscillating saw to define a path for moving the saw as described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,092,869. The need to insure proper orientation of the guide mechanism relative to the long access of the femur, for example, led to the generally accepted practice of inserting a long rod into the intermedullary canal within the femur as a fixed point of reference for the guide mechanism. U.S. Pat. No. 5,047,032 describes a resection technique that uses an intermedullary rod as a fixed pivot point for a milling bit or router that resects a circular path around the intermedullary rod in order to create a single resected surface on the end of the femur. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,228,459, 5,571,100 and 5,653,714 and U.S. Publication application 2003/0045883A1 describe various resection guide systems in which some portion of the guide mechanism can be rotated into a desired position and then locked in that position to permit the guide mechanism to be aligned by the surgeon in multiple different fixed positions. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,643,272, for example, describes embodiments of a profile based resection technique that utilizes guide surfaces that permit the surgeon to plunge and sweep the cutting profile of a cutting tool in an arc within the confines of the guide surfaces.
While the cutting profile of the cutting tool is retained in a plane defined by the guide surfaces, there is no guide for how the surgeon manipulates the cutting tool in a sweeping manner to define the arc(s) within that plane.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONThe present invention provides for embodiments of cutting guides, cutting tools, and soft tissue management techniques that permit the use of pivoting guide surfaces to facilitate in controlling the sweep or arc of a cutting tool used in connection with resection and arthroplasty procedures. In accordance with the present invention, a guide structure is provided with one or more guide pivot aperture(s) and one or more guide pivot reference surface(s) that mate with a bushing assembly controlling a cutting tool. The bushing assembly possesses a bushing reference plane (which mates with the pivot reference surface(s) of the guide structure) and a bushing pivot pin (which mates with the guide pivot aperture(s) of the guide structure). In one embodiment, a cannulation mechanism is operably coupled to the guide structure for articulated and/or axial guidance of the cutting tool.
The present invention utilizes a number of embodiments of cutting guide technologies loosely or directly based on Profile Based Resection (PBR). Preferably, the present invention is utilized for creating planar and/or curvilinear resection surfaces on or in the proximal tibial and other bones for prosthetic implants. The overriding objects of PBR technologies are to provide for significantly improved reproducibility of implant fit and alignment in a manner largely independent of the individual surgeon's manual skills, while providing for outstanding ease of use, economic, safety, and work flow performance.
The present invention may be utilized with a number of embodiments of alignment or drill guides to precisely and accurately determine the desired cutting guide location/orientation. In one embodiment, the guide structure is secured to the bone to be resected by fixation pins, although other techniques for referencing and aligning the guide structure are also encompassed by the present invention. The overriding objects of the embodiments are to precisely and accurately dictate the aforementioned locations and orientations while optionally enabling ease of use in conjunction with manually or Computer Assisted techniques, and while preferably enabling ease of use in minimally invasive procedures where surgical exposure and trauma are minimized.
The present invention utilizes a number of embodiments of cutting tools to remove bony material to create cut surfaces for prosthetic implant attachment and fixation. The overriding objects of the embodiments are to provide the ability to perform resection in very small incisions, the creation of precise and accurate cut(s), and to provide for soft tissue protection characteristics and features preventing the tool from accidentally harming soft tissue. Specifically, many of the cutting tool embodiments disclosed are either incapable or highly resistant to damaging soft tissue, or are by means disclosed prevented from coming into contact with soft tissue in the first place.
The present invention utilizes a number of methods and apparatus embodiments of soft tissue management techniques and the devices supporting said techniques. The overriding object of these embodiments is to take advantage of the anatomy, physiology, and kinematics of the human body in facilitating clinical efficacy of orthopedic procedures.
It is an often repeated rule of thumb for orthopedic surgeons that a “Well placed, but poorly designed implant will perform well clinically, while a poorly placed, well designed implant will perform poorly clinically.” The present invention provides a method and apparatus for reducing implant placement errors in order to create more reproducible, consistently excellent clinical results in a manner that decreases risk to soft tissue, incision or exposure size requirements, manual skill requirements, and/or visualization of cutting action.
It should be clear that applications of the present invention is not limited to Total Knee Arthroplasty or the other specific applications cited herein, but are rather universally applicable to any form of surgical intervention where the resection of bone is required. These possible applications include, but are not limited to Unicondylar Knee Replacement, Hip Arthroplasty, Ankle Arthroplasty, Spinal Fusion, Osteotomy Procedures (such as High Tibial Osteotomy), ACL or PCL reconstruction, and many others. In essence, any application where an expense, accuracy, precision, soft tissue protection or preservation, minimal incision size or exposure are required or desired for a bone resection and/or prosthetic implantation is a potential application for this technology. In addition, many of the embodiments shown have unique applicability to minimally invasive surgical (MIS) procedures and/or for use in conjunction with Surgical Navigation, Image Guided Surgery, or Computer Aided Surgery systems.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGSOther important objects and features of the invention will be apparent from the following detailed description of the invention taken in connection with the accompanying drawings in which:
It should be noted that, in many of the figures, the cut surface created by the cutting tool in accordance with the techniques of the present invention are shown as having already been completed for the sake of clarity. Similarly, the bones may be shown as being transparent or translucent for the sake of clarity. The guides/pins, cutting tool, bones, and other items disclosed are may be similarly represented for the sake of clarity or brevity
Although not shown, the surgically navigated drill guide benefits from an optional handle feature allowing the surgeon to grasp and manipulate the drill guide, impact the tines into the bone to achieve initial purchase (tapping an impact surface on the end of the handle with a hammer may suffice), and containing a surgical navigation sensor or trackable marker enabling the surgical navigation system to sense and communicate to the surgeon the exact location and orientation of the drill guide in space with respect to the desired aperture location and orientation to be created in the bone or bones.
It should also be noted that the methods described herein are applicable to the methods demonstrated in Provisional Patent Applications No. 60/536,320, entitled “Methods and Apparatus for Pinplasty Bone Resection”, and Application No. 60/540,992, entitled “Methods and Apparatus for Wireplasty Bone Resection,” the disclosures of each of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
There are a number of optional features that are highly desirable depending on the preferred method of use utilized for these embodiments of the present invention. The soft tissue protection tip of the cutting tool and the integral soft tissue retractor feature of the bushing body are two principal examples represented in
In operation, the guide is properly positioned with respect to the proximal tibia and the cut(s) to be created thereon and robustly fixed with respect to the tibia or directly to the tibia. This can be accomplished by manual alignment means outlined in U.S. Pat. No. 5,643,272 (the '272 patent) for manually positioning guides then fixing them in place, or use the apparatus and methods described in the '272 patent to create the fixation apertures shown in
Three primary methods of initiating cutting of the proximal tibia are preferred. The first, or ‘Tangent Method’, is initiated by extending the side cutting drill through the bushing body cannulation and into contact with a side of the tibia and then sliding the optional non cutting tip along the face of the bone until the cutting surfaces of the cutting tool are first in contact with the side of the bone. At this point, the cutter could be actuated to begin cutting the bony tissue to create the cut surface. As the non-cutting tip cannot cut bone, its edges would remain at all times immediately beyond and adjacent to the boundary of the cut surface being created. The diameter or size may be greater or less than the diameter or size of cutting surfaces of the cutting tool. Note that although the embodiment of the cutting tool shown is a side cutting drill, a modified rat tail rasp driven by a reciprocating driver could also work well—any cutting tool capable of cutting in a direction orthogonal to its long axis is considered to be within the scope of the present invention. As best represented in
In one embodiment, the pivot reference surface and pivot aperture could be slidably mounted to a base component fixed with respect to the tibia so that the surgeon may manipulate the bushing body to simultaneously create the cut and move the pivot aperture with respect to the tibia. This embodiment will enable the surgeon to easily compensate for any soft tissue condition encountered clinically while preserving the benefits of the present invention. Methods combining the aforementioned primary methods are considered to be within the scope the present invention. Importantly, most standard or prior art tibial resection cutting guides may be modified to include the pivot apertures and pivot surfaces of the guide assembly of this embodiment as described herein.
This embodiment is also highly applicable to tibial resection and allows for cut geometries that are anatomically curved in both AP and ML profiles to both preserve bone and improve fixation quality and load transfer characteristics between the implant and the bone by converting the shear component load of conventional planar tibial components into compressive loads via geometrically normal or transverse abutment of bone and implant surfaces in the direction of A-P and/or M-L and/or torsional shear loading. An implant design embodying fixation geometries for mating with such cut surfaces is highly desirable. In one embodiment of such a tibial prosthesis design, the fixation surfaces would be intended to mate, directly or indirectly, with cut surfaces represented in FIGS. 33 and/or 34 (the tibia in the right side of the
An alternative fixation paradigm allows for less intensive demands for the precision of the fit between concave tibial cuts and convex fixation surface. In essence, the concave surface may be ‘excavated’ in any desired manner (such as the Cutting Trials shown in
It should be noted that the cutting profile of the cutting tool shown in
Critically, in many applications of the tibial resection embodiments and methods described herein it is desirable that the Superior-Inferior thickness or diameter of the cutting tools used be less than the thickness of the bone to be removed in the creation of the cut surfaces so that the cutting surfaces of the cutting tool not contact soft tissue surface and bone surfaces located above the bone being removed. Alternatively, the cutting tool could be of such a thickness or diameter as to allow for the resection of both the femur and the tibia, or any such contiguous bones, to be prepared simultaneously with the passage of the cutting surfaces of a single tool across or along cut surfaces being created on both bones. Maintaining the desired geometric relationships between the contiguous or adjacent bone ends would be key in this embodiment of the present invention and could easily be obtained and maintained by use of a bracket fixed to the bones to establish and maintain the geometric relationship between said bones (see
In one embodiment, the use of internal profile based resection guides allows for single spindle guidance of the side cutting drill or other cutting tool in a very robust manner, while minimizing the trauma to soft tissues necessary to implement these embodiments. Furthermore, the use of these single spindle embodiments lend themselves to easy manipulation of the cutting tool in pivotally sweeping a cut surface while manipulating the cutting tool axially with respect to the bushing (see
As an example,
Interestingly, this embodiment of kinematic resection style resection could be modified to allow the cutting tool to be directly or indirectly linked to the movement of the patella with respect to the femur, or directly connected to the patella, to enable cutting of patellofemoral articular surfaces on the femur while moving the tibia and patella through ranges of motion about the femur. The embodiments of cutting tools for use in attaining this include curvilinear end cutting mills or face cutters, side cutting drills with linear or non-linear cutting profiles, and other cutting tools capable of cutting the femur while engaged, directly or indirectly, to the patella. The side-to-side location of such cutters could be determined by engagement or adjustment with respect to a PBR or other guide, or simply by the natural kinematic path of the patella about the femur during flexion-extension of the knee joint.
In use, the drill (or “Joint Line Drill”) shown in
It is important to note that this embodiment of the present invention, as perhaps best shown in comparing
A desirable option for use with this embodiment of the present invention is a continuous distraction device allowing for the location and orientation of the tibia with respect to the femur (and thereby the location and orientation of the tibially embedded cutting tool with respect to the femur) to be reproducibly controlled as the tibia is manipulated through a range of motion about the femur, thus yielding cut surfaces of the desired shape, location, and orientation. One example of such a continuous distraction device is shown in
An alternative to the continuous distraction devices described above would be manual distraction of the single compartment of the knee joint during manipulation of the tibia through a range of motion about the femur during kinematic resection which will be very advantageous in Unicondylar Knee procedures. This method, when applied to medial compartment Unicondylar replacement, involves the surgeon performing at least preliminary soft tissue release in the affected compartment, creating the aperture using the joint line drill while applying a force or moment to or about the joint so as to appropriate tense the ligaments and achieve the desired displacement of the tibia from the femur at that point in the range of motion of the joint and thereby the tibiofemoral aperture would be properly located with respect to both the femur and the tibia. Next the bushing or milling handle would be inserted into the aperture, and, while maintaining the desired tension on the soft tissues via the aforementioned force or moment, sweeping the tibia about the femur while cutting the femur. A skilled surgeon could effectively and consistently implement this technique without the hereinabove mentioned continuous distraction device.
Another feature of the embodiments of the present invention represented in
The complete disclosures of the patents, patent applications and publications cited herein are incorporated by reference in their entirety as if each were individually incorporated. Various modifications and alterations to this invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of this invention. It should be understood that this invention is not intended to be unduly limited by the illustrative embodiments and examples set forth herein and that such examples and embodiments are presented by way of example only with the scope of the invention intended to be limited only by the claims set forth herein.
Claims
1. A method for implanting an orthopedic prosthesis during arthroplasty surgery comprising:
- providing a guide pivot reference surface in a predetermined orientation to a resected surface to be created in a bone, the guide pivot reference surface including at least one guide pivot aperture defined therein;
- providing a bushing assembly having a bushing reference plane, a bushing pivot pin and a guide structure having a guide lumen defined therein with a long axis of the guide lumen corresponding to a long axis of a cutting instrument;
- operably mating the bushing reference plane with the guide pivot surface such that the bushing pivot pin engages one of the at least one guide pivot apertures;
- utilizing the cutting instrument to create at least a portion of the resected surface by inserting the cutting instrument into and beyond the guide lumen of the guide structure and sweeping the cutting instrument across at least a portion of the resected surface by pivoting the bushing assembly on an axis defined by the bushing pivot pin engaged with the one of the at least one guide pivot apertures; and
- operably attaching a corresponding surface of the orthopedic prosthesis to the resected surface.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the guide pivot reference surface is defined on a sweeping guide body having fixation features and the method further comprises operably securing the fixture features relative to the bone to be resected such that the guide pivot reference surface is positioned in the predetermined orientation.
3. The method of claim 1, where the guide pivot reference surface is defined on the bone to be resected and the method further comprises creating the guide pivot reference surface on the bone to be resected and drilling the at least one guide pivot aperture in the guide pivot reference surface.
4. An apparatus for guiding a cutting tool to create a resected surface in a bone during an arthroplasty procedure, the apparatus comprising:
- a sweeping guide body having fixation features adapted to operably securing the sweeping guide body relative to the bone, the sweeping guide body have a guide pivot reference surface that includes at least one guide pivot aperture defined therein; and
- a bushing assembly having a bushing reference plane, a bushing pivot pin and a guide structure with a guide lumen defined therein with a long axis corresponding to a long axis of a cutting tool,
- such that, when the fixture features are operably secured to the bone and the bushing assembly operably coacts with the sweeping guide body whereby the bushing reference plane operably mates with the guide pivot surface and the bushing pivot pin operably engages with one of the at least one guide pivot apertures, the apparatus provides articulated and axial guidance of the cutting tool as the cutting tool creates at least a portion of the resected surface by inserting the cutting tool into and beyond the guide lumen of the guide structure and sweeping the cutting tool across at least a portion of the resected surface by pivoting the bushing assembly on an axis defined by the bushing pivot pin engaged with the one of the at least one guide pivot apertures.
5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the guide lumen has an internal cross-section along the long axis of the guide lumen generally corresponding to a cross section of the cutting tool along the long axis of the cutting tool and the cutting tool is selected from the set consisting of: a sagital saw, a milling bit, and an ultrasonic blade.
Type: Application
Filed: Mar 8, 2005
Publication Date: Jan 19, 2006
Inventor: Timothy Haines (Seattle, WA)
Application Number: 11/074,599
International Classification: A61B 17/58 (20060101);