Materialise’s Upper Extremity Osteotomy Guides Aid Surgeons

Materialise has expanded its 3D printed orthopedic solutions to include osteotomy guides for adults in the United States with metacarpal/phalange and clavicle bone deformities. These guides, developed in collaboration with surgical teams, are designed specifically for each individual patient to help orthopedic surgeons understand and execute even the most complex cases with confidence.
 
Orthopedic surgeons trust Materialise’s clinical engineers and their proven solutions to provide support with 3D planning and patient-specific surgical guides in bone deformity corrections. Materialise has supported surgeons in more than 1,000 adult clinical osteotomy consultations, and with the addition of metacarpal/phalange and clavicle guides, more adults will be eligible to benefit from the 3D printing technology.
 
“It’s exciting to see Materialise’s patient-specific technology expand to allow surgeons to correct more complex bone deformities and enable more patients to assume the quality of life they had before their injury,” said Bryan Crutchfield, vice president and general manager Materialise North America.
 
Materialise 3D printed guides can be used in most operations, from standard procedures to highly complex cases. Because each guide is patient-specific, they can give orthopedic surgeons increased confidence in the operating room, and have in some cases, been used to perform first of their kind corrections.
 
These new guides will expand surgeons’ access to 3D printing technology that has been used in the past to correct complex bone deformities in other areas of the body. In one case in Texas, a young man’s elbow reconstruction was delayed for several years, making the procedure to repair extremely complex. He had lost all feeling and function in his left arm due to major nerve damage, yet all the bones remained intact. In his right arm, his elbow had been completely shattered. Although it had never been done, surgeons began looking into taking his uninjured elbow from his left arm and transplanting it into his right arm. This is where Materialise Clinical Engineering, played a key part in helping surgeons visualize the patient’s pre-operative anatomy and strategize the correction. What made this case particularly unique was the fact that surgeons had to transplant anatomy that was a mirror image of another side of the body.
 
Working in coordination with the surgical team, Materialise assisted in reconstructing the elbow virtually to assess potential risks and develop a surgical plan. A successful elbow transplant, in combination with affixing the surrounding soft and joining tissues, made this a first of its kind surgery, marking a milestone in the orthopaedic industry.
 
Pioneering procedures such as this elbow transplant, drives Materialise to continue innovating and strengthening the company’s mission of developing products that result in a better and healthier world, while gaining a more in-depth knowledge of additive manufacturing to provide more adults with the chance to live a normal life.
 
To learn more about 3D printed osteotomy guides, contact Materialise for a free 3D Analysis or stop by booth #209 at the American Society for Surgery of the Hand Annual Meeting on September 7-9, 2017 in San Francisco to speak with Materialise clinical engineers.