Alex Breton | Mechanical Engineer
Fixed Angle Driver
created as a
Product Design Engineer at SpineFrontier
The fixed angle driver is an instrument designed for the company's product line which is used in ACDF procedures. An ACDF (anterior cervical discectomy and fusion) is a surgical procedure which fuses two or more vertebrae in the neck together, in this case with a plastic insert and two screws. The screws, inserted angled superiorly and inferiorly, had been driven in with a straight driver. Inserting the inferior screw, however, was difficult because the patient's chin would often interfere with the driver. The angled driver eliminates this interference while allowing the surgeon to insert the screw at the proper angle.
When I joined the project, the small team was moving on from the previous failed iteration based on a bevel gear drive to the ultimately final design. The transmission element in the final driver is a ball hex and cup, which allows the torque to be transmitted at the fixed 20° angle. The engineering team, primarily consisting of me and my superior, took the design through its final iterations, making changes to account for tolerance stack-ups, design for manufacturability and assembly, and compliance with our design criteria.
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We took the device through its small-lot manufacture, interfacing with our manufacturers throughout the entire process. Once the drivers were finished, we conducted the verification and validation tests we had designed, and completed the internal product development process, releasing them to the field. The video above shows clips from the first surgery in which the driver was used (which I was able to observe).
