Spinal Elements, a spine technology company, announced that they will be working with Mighty Oak Medical to market the Firefly surgical guidance system.
The Firefly system consists of bone models and guides precisely matched to the patient’s anatomy through concierge pre-surgical planning and proprietary computer-designed guidance solutions. Using data from the patient’s CT scan, Mighty Oak Medical is able to make highly accurate patient-specific pedicle screw guides to be used intraoperatively. The guides and bone models are created using the latest 3D printing technologies.
Navigation has become increasingly popular with surgeons as a way to achieve improved screw placement accuracy. Image-guided and robotic-assisted systems are available at some facilities, but can be extremely expensive, requiring capital equipment installations at the facility. This makes the technology less accessible to smaller centres and can require surgeons to wait on equipment availability.
The Firefly Pedicle Screw Navigation Guide system has no capital equipment requirements, and intraoperative imaging (and thus radiation exposure) may be reduced due to the accuracy of the patient-matched guides. This makes Firefly an attractive alternative to control costs and improve safety for all stakeholders.
Heidi Frey, president of Mighty Oak Medical, said: “We are excited to partner with Spinal Elements on this technology. We feel confident that once surgeons experience the ease of use and accessibility of the Firefly system, they will gravitate towards predetermined screw sizes and trajectories, implemented with 3D printed patient-specific guides, as a preferred course of treatment for their patients. Spinal Elements, being a technology leader, is a natural partner choice for us to market this technology.”
