CD HORIZON® SEXTANT™ Spinal System allows surgeons to deliver and apply screw and rod implants to the posterior aspect of the spine without the major muscle and tissue disruption encountered with traditional spinal fusion surgeries. This minimally invasive technique potentially allows significant patient benefits.
The CD HORIZON SEXTANT Spinal System is an implant system composed of rods, screws, specially designed surgical tools and a novel mechanical implant delivery device. This device looks much like the sextant of naval navigation, and is the navigation and insertion tool that allows screws and rods to be applied to the spine in a minimally invasive manner.Two principal elements comprise this device. The first are screw extenders, which are long metal shafts used to deliver and attach screws to the vertebrae through small skin incisions. These extenders protrude outside of the body, allowing the surgeon to arrange and join their ends so that the second principal part, the rod inserter, may be attached. The rod inserter is an arc-shaped arm that swings on an axis and delivers a pre-cut rod through the skin and muscle and into the heads of the implanted screws.
Benefits:
- Shorter hospital stays – one to three days vs. up to a week with open surgery
- Smaller scars – one-inch scars vs. six- to eight-inch scars
- Shorter recovery periods
- Less post-operative pain – no muscle cutting or stripping
The Minimally Invasive Approach with CD HORIZON SEXTANT System:Using the METRx™ System’s muscle-splitting dilator tubes, surgeons access the lumbar spine through small skin incisions and tunnels created by separating muscle along its natural divisions. The CD HORIZON SEXTANT Spinal System is then used to precisely deliver the screws and rods through the skin incisions.
The trend in spine surgery for many procedures has been moving toward minimally invasive approaches. These include spine surgery for lumbar fusion, deformity surgery, cervical surgery and sacroiliac joint fusion. The benefits of minimally invasive spine surgery (MIS) include decreased pain, less blood loss, shorter hospital stays and faster recovery. However, there is a difficult learning curve for surgeons when mastering MIS procedures. Increasing familiarity with MIS techniques creates more options for surgeons treating spine conditions with the potential to decrease surgical complications. The goal of this conference is to update neurological and orthopedic surgeons, as well as allied health professionals on the latest advances in MIS surgical techniques.
About Medtronic
Medtronic, Inc. (NYSE: MDT), based in suburban Minneapolis, Minnesota, is theworld’s largest medical technology company and is a Fortune 500 company.Medtronic was founded in 1949 in a garage in northeast Minneapolis by Earl Bakken and his brother-in-law Palmer Hermundslie as a medical equipment repair shop. They originally wanted to sell basketball pumps due to a shortage in the Midwest in the 20th century. Bakken began as a graduate student in electrical engineering at the University of Minnesota before he gave up his studies to focus on Medtronic.Through their repair business, Bakken came to know C. Walton Lillehei, a pioneer in the field of heart surgery then at the University of Minnesota Medical School. Lillehei was frustrated with the pacemakers of the day, which were quite large, applied electrical current externally (requiring higher voltages), and had to be plugged in to a wall outlet to operate. The deficiencies of such pacemakers were made painfully obvious following a power outage over Halloween in 1957 which affected large sections of Minnesota and western Wisconsin.As a direct result of this blackout, a pediatric patient of Dr. Lillehei who was pacemaker-dependent died. The next day, Lillehei spoke with Bakken about developing some form of battery-powered pacemaker. Stemming from this need, Bakken modified a design for a transistorized metronome to create the first battery-powered external artificial pacemaker.