History and development of suction-irrigation-reaming

Excessive intramedullary pressure coincident to surgical procedures requiring entrance and surgical manipulation within the intramedullary canal is a problem that was recognized by Gerhard Küntscher, the godfather of intramedullary nailing. He expressed concern about this phenomenon in his early writings during the 1940's. Although he suggested certain technical methods to moderate the event while doing the surgical procedure he had no solution for absolutely preventing its occurrence. This became more of an issue after he introduced motorized reaming in the mid 1950's to improve the strength of intramedullary fixation. The first to demonstrate that pressure could be avoided during intramedullary surgeries were Lorenzi, Olerud and Dankwardt-Lillieström in the late 1960's. Using a method that employed suction evacuation of intramedullary content prior to reaming, and by introducing irrigation while reaming, they were able to achieve negative pressures during their intramedullary work. They proved that if an IM technique did not inject fat throughout the bone and into the organism there were significant benefits both locally and systemically. With impeccable methodology, they showed fat destroyed the vascularity of the bone and inhibited its revascularization. Systemically, its presence was associated with death and morbidity. K.M. Stürmer, using sheep in studies done in the 1980's, further validated the effectiveness of negative pressure reaming to prevent adverse effects associated with reaming. The attempt to create a device to provide these benefits clinically, however, has been challenging. The group in Muenster did work with a rinsing-suction-reamer (RSR) that showed fat introduction with reaming need not be significantly greater than when using an external fixator. In the US, the effort has focused on developing a reamer that integrated suction and irrigation into its design. This instrument has been given the acronym of RIA (reamer/irrigator/aspirator). The rationale and development of this system is detailed in this paper. Now that the intramedullary canal can be reamed using a negative pressure method this domain, as a unique source of biological material, is being increasingly investigated. The cells and tissue harvested from this space have tremendous therapeutic promise.