Comparison of implant insertion freehand and guided by a patient-specific surgical drillin guide in the lumbar spine of cats using three-dimensional rapid prototyping

Abstract

Procedures in which surgeons use the "free hand" to apply implants to the vertebrae can result in complications due to the poor positioning of these screws, in addition to being a challenging surgery. Therefore, the use of patient-specific surgical drilling guides reduces these complications and generates good results. The objective of the project is to obtain patient-specific surgical perforation guides for the lumbar region (L4-L5), of feline cadavers, produced through computed tomography and 3D printing, to compare the insertion of implants with their aid with the insertion to the hands free. 10 feline cadavers will be used, divided into a freehand group (GFH) and a surgical perforation guide group (GGS), where the GGS group will undergo computed tomography and the images obtained will pass through the Slicer 3D®, Blender® and RadiAnt® software for subsequent preparation of the drilling guide with the aid of Repetier Host® software and 3D printer. After the surgeries, a new computed tomography scan will be performed on all cadavers to assess the accuracy of the techniques in the insertion of implants through statistical analysis with paired test, analysis of variance (One-way ANOVA) and Tukey's method using the GraphPad prism® software.