Stryker Corporation
Methods of preparing tissue of a patient to receive an implant

Abstract:

Methods of removing tissue from a patient during a surgical procedure, such as for preparing a spine of a patient to receive an implant during a fusion procedure. A working portion of an instrument is moved with actuators relative to a hand-held portion in at least three degrees of freedom including pivoting in pitch and yaw about a pivot. The working portion is translated while the hand-held portion is manually grasped and moved during the surgical procedure. The working portion is rotated with a drive mechanism to remove a volume of the tissue of the patient with a cutting accessory of the working portion. The actuators may move the working portion to substantially maintain the cutting accessory in a desired relationship to a virtual boundary defining the volume of the tissue to be removed. A position of the cutting accessory relative to the virtual boundary may be determined and tracked.