AO and mediCAD

In recent years AO had seen increasing demand for preoperative planning of osteotomies on the long leg, however, was aware that planning with a pen on baking paper may be suitable for learners, but not usable for the daily routine in the OR. Digital planning and audit-proof storing in the PACS are state of the art already throughout the world.

Hence AO Foundation decided to enter a partnership with mediCAD and to establish a taskforce which should be called the DCPTF (Deformity analysis and correction planning task force) as it has been done years ago with the osteosynthesis solutions “Tomofix” and the hexapod “Maxframe”.

Prof. Steffen Schröter (Siegen, GER) as chair, Dr. Julian Fürmetz (Murnau, GER) and Dr. Jörg Harrer (Lichtenfels, GER) will be part of the task force since they could take a long-term use of orthopedic and traumatological planning tools as well as surgical experience into the task force. Besides that, they had been in good, regular contact with mediCAD through common studies or marketing activities in previous years.

The task force met first in June 2020 in the Rilano hotel in Oberursel close by Frankfurt/Main which was the kick-off for the project. It was quickly agreed upon, that the task force should start developing a tool for the most planned cases of corrective osteotomies around the knee joint. Planning should be fast, easy, intuitive and give guidance for learners. That led to a highly automatized tool offering an automatic landmark detection, a surgery recommendation, placement of the osteotomy cut and automatic correction to the desired target of a slight overcorrection of the leg axis. Depending on wedge heights, norm values for mMPTA and mLDFA, the software starts suggesting a double level osteotomy, if a single cut is not enough to reach the correction target within the constraints mentioned. For the experienced user who does not want guidance, there is at any stage in the workflow the option to perform the step manually as it is also the obligation for a medical product which must not be used for diagnostic purposes such as the mediCAD software.

But development will not stop at this point and plans reach far into 3D planning of derotational osteotomies and the correction of complex deformities as well as to find means for a better, more precise intraoperative execution of the surgical plan. This means there are many more exciting projects to come up for the partners AO and mediCAD, which they are both looking forward to.

A mediCAD representation on the fair ground in the congress center of Davos will be most happy to show interested participants our new tool. All attendees of the module “AO Sports Advanced Course—Knee Injuries and Deformities” will have the pleasure to be the first to plan their corrective osteotomy with the newly developed software. Both AO Foundation and mediCAD would be very pleased to meet you, as well!