A Semi-Automatic CAD Procedure to Design Custom-made Surgical Cutting Guides

The present paper presents the development of a novel procedure for the modeling of Surgical Cutting Guides (SCGs) exploiting an implicit modeling approach. As discussed in the text, this approach allows for a streamlined and efficient design of this type of medical device. A procedural approach based on the application of a series of a priori-known implicit modeling function allows the generation of personalized surgical guides starting from the i) patient’s anatomy and ii) clinical decisions made by the medical staff. The CAD procedure is detailed in the text; achieved results are discussed and compared with a traditional CAD modeling approach on three case studies.