Surgery – Instruments – Orthopedic instrumentation
Patent
1999-04-30
2000-03-07
Buiz, Michael
Surgery
Instruments
Orthopedic instrumentation
606170, A61B 1716
Patent
active
060334096
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
DESCRIPTION
1. Field of the invention
The present invention generally relates to the field of apparatus for orthopaedic surgery and, more precisely, it relates to a surgical drill and actuating unit with drill bit penetration control and breakthrough detection.
2. Description of the prior art
It is at present felt by surgeons the need of a drill having sensors which can control the drill bit penetration while making a bore in a tissue, in particular a bone wall.
In fact, a surgical drill is often used for osteosynthesis operations and is guided manually by the surgeon, who carries out the drilling step according to his/her experience. For example, when transversally drilling a bone, the surgeon often has either to bore both the two cortical bone walls, making a substantially through hole, or has to bore only one wall, either passing through or not passing through the trabecular or medullar bone. However, it is difficult to carry out a correct drilling step without an automatic control of the drill bit displacement and of the drill bit piercing force and this depends totally on the surgeon's skill, who is also aware that to bore more than necessary could be useless and harmful for the patient.
Moreover, the drilling step has often to be carried out uncomfortably, according to the drilling direction with respect to the patient, and the more it is difficult and the more the risk of error rises. The surgeon, in any case, however skill, cannot reduce beyond certain limits the drill bit displacement error.
On the other hand, even if an industrial drill can be mounted on a fixed support having mechanically adjustable displacement means, this solution cannot be used in the case of a surgical drill, since the parts to be bored, differently from what occurs in the industrial field, cannot be fixed to reliable reference surfaces.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,897,166 describes a drill which can also be used in medical work such as bone drilling. The drill support comprises a pressure foot at its forward end to contact a work piece to be drilled. The support carries out the feed control of the pressure foot by means of a slide operated by the drive shaft of the drill. Therefore, pressure applied to the drill motor does not cause directly penetration of the work piece, such penetration being proportional to the speed of the drive shaft with respect to the pressure foot. Since the bit cannot advance freely, it cannot surge or jam when it breaks through the rear of the work piece.
However, U.S. Pat. No. 3,897,166 does not provide means for preventing the drill bit from breaking through a cortical wall of a bone, thus causing serious damages to the patient. In fact, the drill bit displacement is continuously fed unless the operator decides to stop the drive shaft rotation.
OBJECT OF THE INVENTION
It is, therefore, object of the present invention to provide a surgical drill which allows at the same time, even if handled manually: of the drill bit penetration in the body to bore with respect to a drill of known art, the breakthrough is incipient. In alternative, it is object of the invention to provide an actuating unit, which can be associated to an already existing surgical drill, that allows the control of the drill bit displacement and of the drilling force with respect to the body to bore as well as provides a stop of the drill bit when the breakthrough is incipient.
These and other objects are achieved by the surgical drill and by the actuating unit according to the invention, comprising a first support for a rotating head holding the drill bit, wherein means for preventing a wall of the body from being broken through by said drill bit are provided. The means for preventing comprise in combination: translating with respect to the first support parallelly to the drill bit, while drilling, and the second support and responsive to the means of detection of the force, whereby both a reliable guide of the drill bit and an automatic stop of the displacement of the drill bit in case of breakthrough condition are provided.
BRIEF DESC
REFERENCES:
patent: 3897166 (1975-07-01), Adams
Buiz Michael
Scuola Superiore Di Studi Universitari
Shai Daphna
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