Clinician: Suresh Agarwal, MD, Chief, Section of Critical Care Medicine, and Associate Professor of Surgery, Boston University Medical Center
MIT Student Team: Dimitris Chatzigeorgiou, Michelle Lustrino, Manas Menon, Joseph Petrzelka and Clara Stefanov-Wagner
This team will describe the development of an articulating endoscopic screw driver that can be used to place screws in osteosynthetic plates during thoracoscopic surgery. The device is small enough to be used with a 12 mm trocar sleeve and transmits sufficient torque to fully secure bone screws. An articulating joint enables correct screw alignment at obtuse angles, up to 60° from the tool axis. Students will present a novel articulating joint design, wherein a flexible shaft both transmits torque and actuates the joint; antagonist force is provided by a super-elastic spring. Screws are secured against the driver blade during insertion and with a retention mechanism that can passively release the screw when it has been securely placed in the bone. The prototype has been fitted with a blade compatible with 2.0 and 2.3 mm self-drilling screws, though a different driver blade or drill bit can easily be attached. Efficacy of the tool is demonstrated by securing an osteosynthetic plate to a rib in a mock surgical setup. This tool enables minimally invasive, thoracoscopic rib fixation.
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