Development of A Bone Reaming System Using Micro Sensors For Internet Force-feedback Control

Internal fixation is a widely used treatment method to repair bone fracture, which is one of the most common orthopedic trauma. However, in reaming of the intramedullary canal to facilitate insertion of a guiding rod by creating a surgical passage, severe disturbances such as increased local cortical temperature and elevation of intramedullary pressure can occur. These disturbances have resulted in fatal complications of heart and lungs of the patients. In this paper, we will report on our developmental progress of a re-engineered bone reaming system packaged with MEMS sensors and signal conditioning circuits capable of feeding pressure and temperature information back to a physician for force-feedback control. The final system will also include force-feedback control over the Internet, which will make tele-surgery possible for these bone-reaming procedures. This new system is very important in two aspects: 1) it will allow physicians to drill just one instead of the currently required minimal of two holes in the fractured bone; 2) it allows physicians to have a force-feedback control, which prevents over-pressurization or over-heating of the bone cavity, using existing bone drilling equipment. We believe that, by merging MEMS and tele-robotic technologies for this medical application, we will dramatically improve the safety and time consumed for the internal fixation procures.