Advantages and pitfalls in computer assisted orthopedic surgery planning using rapid-prototyped guides

Abstract

The use of rapid-prototyped surgical guides has become a popular technique to precisely reproduce computer-based 3D preoperative planning in the surgery. Since several years, the method is successfully used at the University Hospital Balgrist for performing corrective osteotomies. We report on the quantitative evaluation of this surgical method and describe our experience in this field. Due to the flexibility offered by rapid prototyping, there is not only one correct approach to perform a certain computer assisted intervention. Therefore, a comparison of different strategies will be given and pitfalls will be discussed. Moreover, further development for applying the proposed technique to small bone anatomy and small bone fragments will be presented.