Steeltown Retractor
In abdominal surgery, existing surgical retractor systems require surgeons to locate and assemble dozens of pieces in the correct order during a surgery, and adjustments require a partial tear-down and rebuild of the system before the surgery can progress. Setting up and adjusting surgical retractor systems regularly consumes 5 to 20 minutes of operating room (OR) time, which costs about $100 per minute. Further, the geometry of the retractor system limits retractor positioning, which requires the use of handheld retractors for hard-to-reach locations. Finally, after the surgery is complete, cleaning and sterilizing the system’s dozens of components takes another 2 to 3 hours. The combined US and European market opportunity for an easy-to-use, time-saving replacement for 2 million open abdominal surgeries annually is estimated at $235 million.
Description
Steeltown Retractor provides surgeons with rapid and precise surgical exposures while minimizing OR and overhead costs for the hospital. The system consists of two simple-to-use parts: a motorized base unit that quickly clamps to the OR table and a retractor-carrying flexible arm. The surgical team simply peels the arm from a sterile pack, snaps it onto the base, and discards it after use. Steeltown Retractor’s flexible arm provides a simple, intuitive interface that allows surgeons to rapidly reposition surgical tools as if they were handheld retractors. Surgeons simply press a button on the arm to make it flexible, move the arm to the desired position, release the button to make the arm rigid again, and then lock the retractor in place. The motorized base unit carries out the actuation. Team-affiliated surgeons have evaluated proof-of-concept prototypes for form and function.Applications
· Surgical retraction· Limb positioning
Advantages
· Simplified user experience· Unconstrained retractor positioning options
· Minimal setup and adjustment time
· Eliminates sterilization requirements