INTELLIGENT CARTILAGE SYSTEM

• US 20110304332A1
• Filed: 02/25/2010
• Published: 12/15/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 02/25/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Zimmer Incorporated (Zimmer Biomet Holdings, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Zimmer Incorporated (Zimmer Biomet Holdings, Inc.)
• Inventors: Mahfouz, Mohamed Rashwan
• Granted Patent: US 8,884,618 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 324/309
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2034/102 Modelling of surgical devices, implants or prosthesis
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2034/108 Computer aided selection or customisation of medical implants or cutting guides
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 34/10 Computer-aided planning, simulation or modelling of surgical operations
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/4245 involving determining the position of the probe, e.g. with respect to an external reference frame or to the patient
• CPC Class Codes: A61F 2/3094 Designing or manufacturing processes
• CPC Class Codes: A61F 2/30942 for designing or making customized prostheses, e.g. using templates, CT or NMR scans, finite-element analysis or CAD-CAM techniques
• CPC Class Codes: A61F 2/3601 for replacing only the epiphyseal or metaphyseal parts of the femur, e.g. endoprosthetic femoral heads or necks directly fixed to the natural femur by internal fixation devices non-prosthetic internal fixation devices for the femoral head or neck A61B17/74
• CPC Class Codes: A61F 2/38 for elbows or knees
• CPC Class Codes: A61F 2/3859 Femoral components
• CPC Class Codes: A61F 2/389 Tibial components A61F2/3868 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61F 2/4003 Replacing only the epiphyseal or metaphyseal parts of the humerus, i.e. endoprosthesis not comprising an entire humeral shaft replacing only the epiphyseal or metaphyseal parts of the femur A61F2/3601
• CPC Class Codes: A61F 2002/30943 using mathematical models
• CPC Class Codes: A61F 2002/30948 using computerized tomography, i.e. CT scans
• CPC Class Codes: A61F 2002/3863 Condyles fitted on an anchored base
• CPC Class Codes: A61F 2002/3895 unicompartimental
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 17/18 for evaluating statistical data , e.g. average values, frequency distributions, probability functions, regression analysis forecasting specially adapted for a specific administrative, business or logistic context G06Q10/04
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 18/00 Pattern recognition
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 19/00 Manipulating 3D models or images for computer graphics
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2210/41 Medical
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/50 for simulation or modelling of medical disorders
• CPC Class Codes: G16Z 99/00 : Subject matter not provided for in other main groups of this subclass

Abstract

The exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure are described and illustrated below to encompass methods and devices for designing patient specific prosthetic cutting jigs and, more specifically, to devices and methods for segmenting bone of the knee and the resulting cutting guides themselves. Moreover, the present disclosure relates to systems and methods for manufacturing customized surgical devices, more specifically, the present disclosure relates to automated systems and methods of arthroplasty cutting guides, systems and methods for image segmentation in generating computer models of knee joint.

Claims

1. A method of generating a patient-specific bone shell representative of at least a portion of a patient'"'"'s bone in its current state, the method comprising:

imaging at least a portion of a patient'"'"'s anatomy to create a plurality of 2D image slices of the patient'"'"'s anatomy taken orthogonal to an axis extending through the patient'"'"'s anatomy, where each of the plurality of 2D image slices includes a bone segment comprising an enclosed boundary corresponding to an exterior of the patient'"'"'s bone;

constructing a 3D image bone shell of at least the portion of the patient'"'"'s bone for which the plurality of 2D image slices of the patient'"'"'s bone were taken, where the construction of the 3D image bone shell includes using software to recognize the enclosed boundary of each bone segment by using a template 3D image bone shell that is not patient specific, and where the 3D image bone shell depicts a current state of the patient'"'"'s bone.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the imaging comprises at least one of magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the patient'"'"'s bone comprises at least one of a femur, a tibia, and a humerus.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising generation of a 3D image surgical jig, by a software component, to mate with the 3D image bone shell, where the 3D image surgical jig includes topographical features customized to the exterior features of the 3D image bone shell.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the software component is operative to output an instruction file for fabricating a surgical jig having tangible topographical features of the 3D image surgical jig.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising constructing a 3D image cartilage shell representing at least a portion of a patient'"'"'s cartilage using the plurality of 2D image slices of the patient'"'"'s anatomy, where the construction of the 3D image cartilage shell includes using software to recognize an outline of cartilage appearing in a 2D image slice.

7. A method of creating jigs from any 2D or 3D imaging modality without using any external on the shelf CAD or medical imaging system.

8. A method of segmenting MRI or CT 3D volume data and creating a jigs in one GUT interface in less than 20 minutes.

9. A method of measuring or estimating the cartilage thickness from multiple imaging modalities using statistical shape atlases and Bayesian inversion probabilities.

10. A method of performing fully unsupervised segmentation with minimal or none manual intervention.

11. A method of using an automatic aligning alignment algorithm for segmentation that requires no manual registration.

12. A method of classifying and predicting areas of cartilage degeneration using noninvasive imaging.

13. A method of implanting a prosthetic component that duplicates the patient'"'"'s anatomy in a non-degenerative condition using statistical and probabilistic atlases.

14. A method of simulating alignment and kinematics of a reconstructed joint using patient specific data.