Value Proposition
· Novel Mechanism: Bone-anchored guide with an attachment device, an integrated cut-location indicator, and an adjustable arm-support that carries a trackable feature.
· Disease-Modifying Potential: Increases cut accuracy, reducing malalignment, lowering revision risk, and preserving bone stock through precisely guided resections.
· Broad Utility: Modular, screw-fixed guide usable across osteotomies and resections in trauma and deformity corrections. Can be modified to assist with a variety of other surgeries involving the head, neck, face, jaws, and teeth.
· Combination Ready: Integrates with existing saws, osteotomes, plates, robotics, and navigation systems; accepts various fiducials/markers and coexists with patient-specific instruments and intraoperative imaging.
· First-Mover Advantage: Distinct IP around slot-based cut indicators with an integrated tracking mount and adjustable arm/support architecture, enabling a defensible leadership position in navigated mechanical surgical guides.
Unmet Need
· Complex craniofacial reconstructions and donor-to-recipient skeletal transfers demand highly accurate osteotomies and fragment placement; current tools (static guides and single-patient navigation) often yield alignment errors, step-off deformities, and prolonged OR times.
· Existing patient-specific cutting guides are not dynamically trackable across both donor and recipient workflows, limiting intraoperative plan updates and precise guidance during fragment transfer and fixation.
· A system that unifies patient-specific guidance, verified registration, real-time tracking, and vascular mapping across donor and recipient is needed to improve precision.
· Therefore, there is a strong need for Computer-Assisted Planning and Execution for Le Fort-based face-jaw-teeth transplantation, designed to improve both pre-operative planning and intra-operative execution during single-stage implant cranioplasties.
Technology Description
· The bone-anchored surgical guide assembly features an attachment device, a cut-location indicator, an adjustable arm, and a support structure designed to carry a trackable feature for intraoperative navigation.
· The system uses a dual-reference, dual-tracker architecture, incorporating cranial and fragment reference units on the donor, a cranial reference on the recipient, and real-time tracking of cutting guides and fragments.
Stage of Development
· Fully developed.
Data Availability
· Data available upon request.
Publication
· Murphy, R. J., Gordon, C. R., Basafa, E., Liacouras, P., Grant, G. T., & Armand, M. (2015). Computer-assisted, Le Fort-based, face-jaw-teeth transplantation: a pilot study on system feasiblity and translational assessment. International journal of computer assisted radiology and surgery, 10(7), 1117–1126. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11548-014-1114-9.
