A Novel Free Form Femoral Cutting Guide

Knee arthoplasty is a common procedure that requires the removal of damaged bone and cartilage from the distal femur so that a reconstructive implant may be installed. Traditionally, a five planar resection has been accomplished with a universal cutting box and navigated with either metal jigs or optically tracked computer navigation systems. Free form, or curved, resections have been made possible with surgical robots which control the resection pathway and serve as the navigation system. The free form femoral cutting guide serves as a non powered framework to guide a standard surgical drill along an anatomically defined pathway, resulting in the removal of distal femoral cartilage. It is fixed via attachment to a bone mounted base component, which is positioned with a patient specific jig. To operate, the surgeon slides the surgical drill along a pair of interlocked tracks. One track controls motion in the anteroposterior (AP) direction and one track controls motion in the mediolateral (ML) direction. Combining both motions results in the removal of cartilage from the area of the distal femur for unilateral or total knee arthoplasty.