[Planning and performance of orthopedic surgery with the help of individual templates]

Operational interventions can be planned and simulated accurately with the help of a three-dimensional reconstruction of the anatomical bone structures, created from the tomographic data of a patient. Computer-assisted navigation systems or robotic systems can assist the intraoperative realization of the planned intervention and may support the spatial orientation within the operational field. As an inexpensive alternative without the high excessive technical workload on the physicians or the surgical personnel, individual templates were developed in the Helmholtz Institute Aachen. In this approach the negative three-dimensional bone surface, known exactly from the 3D-reconstruction of the patient's bone by the planning system DISOS, is milled into a small cubic block of polycarbonate. During the intervention, the template serves as a reference for the spatial orientation and as a tool-guide for cutting or milling of the bone according to the previous planning. Clinical and experimental studies have shown that operation times as well as intraoperative X-ray times can be shortened by the use of individual templates, while preserving the task sequence of the conventional operation procedures.