Pre-operative plate contouring technology
HTIC started developing an affordable technology solution to perform accurate contouring for creating patient specific pre-contoured surgical plates, for use in reconstructive surgeries in 2014. The technology is targeted towards mitigating the barriers of time, skill and effort required to perform patient specific plate contouring as per current clinical practice of manual, on the table contouring that is often performed during the surgery. In 2014-2015, HTIC developed a full-fledged technology platform, that included a software platform for converts patient’s CT images into patient’s anatomy and generates optimised instructions for performing patient specific plate contouring, and a hardware component that includes intuitive, and easy-to-operate tools for accurate plate contouring. Extensive development of the basic software into a comprehensive management tool for plate contouring was performed this year. The software was based on the 3D Slicer platform, which was customised to develop a standalone application, which could be deployed on a desktop/laptop computer. The technology was transferred to an industrial partner post the development, for clinical verification and validation