Article
ElePhant – An electronic phantom for evaluation in spine surgery
ElePhant – Ein elektronisches Phantom für die Evaluation in der Wirbelsäulenchirurgie
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Published: | April 11, 2007 |
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Outline
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Objective: The aim of this project was the development of an anatomical spine model for evaluation of new developed medical devices. A requirement was, that a realistic OR setup can be simulated as well as realistic haptics. Furthermore, the detection of injuring the dura should be possible. The technical feasibility of the spine model is presented in this paper.
Methods: The spine of the Visible Human Project CT dataset was modified segmented with the Software Mimics (Materialise, Leuven, Belgium). The segmentation included the bone structure and the dura. Subsequently, the triangulated model was sent to a 3D-Printer (4D Concepts, Gross-Gerau, Germany) creating the model. The material is based on plaster. After the print, the model was infiltrated with additives to influence the material properties. The next step was the implementation of the model in an electrical circuit. To realize that, the model and the surgical instrument were connected with a data-acquisition card (National Instruments, Austin, Texas, USA) located in a PC. A software was developed for controlling and evaluating the simulation.
Results: An anatomical model was created with the Rapid Prototyping technology (RPT) 3D-Printing. The model is an element of an electrical circuit including the model itself, a PC and the surgical instrument. An objective signal appears on the PC monitor, if the surgical instrument injures the dura. Furthermore, the simulation time and the number of injures are registered and stored in a log file for evaluation.
Conclusions: A realistic OR setup can be established for simulation of spine surgeries. The surgeon can apply the real surgical instrument at the model. In contrast to VR-simulators, the use of the real surgical instrument at the anatomical RPT model allows a realistic haptic. Furthermore, special OR situations can be simulated to check for example the line of sight problem using navigation systems.