Femur fractures no match for surgical robot
Cari Cooney | March 24, 2022Surgeons have often struggled with repairing femur fractures. Being the longest bone in the human body, the location is deep under the skin with muscle from the upper leg surrounding it. It takes quite a bit of power to operate on the bone. With the area having so much going on, it can be difficult to get a good view to assess the extent of the injury; this leads to lengthy surgery times, longer recovery and potentially more patient complications after.
For the past ten years, Dr. Mohammad Abedin-Nasab, assistant professor of biomedical engineering in the Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering, has been working on a robotic system to assist surgeons in these procedures. The National Science Foundation has awarded Abedin-Nasab a $250,000 Partnerships in Innovation grant to help further develop the system, called Robossis. The funding will assist Abedin-Nasab in the prototype development of Robossis. Scheduled for completion in late 2023, this preliminary system will satisfy the FDA’s safety and efficacy requirements. Once cleared, the testing on patients can begin; cadavers have been the only test subjects to date.
There are three components to Robossis: the robotics, the imagine software and the haptic device. A metal device was created to fit a standard surgical table as it encircles the leg. Rods are then inserted and attached to bone fragments. The imagine software creates x-rays from different angles to show the complete fracture.
FDA clearance will make Robossis first of its kind
Abedin-Nasab’s team includes a handful of clinicians, several Ph.D. students, undergraduate students and medical students. During this developmental stage, he has held interviews at length with surgeons and patients with femur fracture experience
“This is truly an interdisciplinary project,” Abedin-Nasab said. “We have expertise from various engineering and medical disciplines that is vital to our success.”
“We will be the first team in the world to make this a reality, which will deliver much better care to patients,” Abedin-Nasab said.