CAD aided pre-operative planning and prototyping of Cubitus Varus cutting guide

This work is the outcome of a partnership between the Department of Industrial Engineering of the University of Bologna and the Rizzoli Orthopedic Institute of Bologna. The aim of this collaboration is using medical engineering tools during orthopedic surgeries. This article focuses on the design and construction of a custom-made surgical guide for cubitus varus. The guides are special aids that allow surgeons to perform operations smoothly, to achieve the planned result and to reduce the risk of inaccuracy. They are obtained with an additive manufacturing process that starts from a 3D digital model of the patient's bone obtained from CT scans and allow designing patient-specific templates using specific software as the Creo Parametric CAD. For the proper functioning of the guide the internal shape must correspond to the external profile of the patient's bone. In this way, the tool obtained fits exactly to the bone and it is possible to direct the cutting during surgery in a very specific direction as identified in the preoperative planning phase.