Senior Design Project Leads to Developing a Tool to Identify Implantable Devices

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Left: Noahlana Monzon, Right: Patrick Kuczwara

Biomedical Engineering students Noahlana Monzon and Patrick Kuczwara are working with industry professionals to develop their idea for a tool that identifies implantable devices in patients.

Two years ago during a clinical needs finding class, Monzon and Kuczwara were given the opportunity to shadow medical professionals. During the class, they discussed problems and how they could be addressed under the guidance of Dr. Kris Hanby at Ozark Orthopedics. One common problem was the lack of a quick and easy system to identify implants, especially total hip replacements.

According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, more than 450,000 total hip replacements are performed each year in the United States.

Hip replacements can become painful in the following years because of wear and tear, and may require additional treatment. By the time that this is true, often times, medical records have been discarded and while the patient may know the type of implant they have, the physician will need to verify this information before planning a procedure. Currently, the main way of identification is to look through an encyclopedia of implant images. Many times this process is long and expensive, having to bring in representatives from different companies if they cannot immediately identify an implant.

"Our solution hopes to quickly, efficiently and effectively identify medical implants in patients," Kuczwara said.

"Medical professionals would upload an x-ray into the specified section of the desired implant," Monzon explained, "The software would then identify the top matches and display the results allowing the medical staff to make the final decision on what implant is in their patient."

Industry partners; John White, VP of Global Product Development, Lower Extremities at Wright Medical; and Brian McKinnon, VP of R&D Robotics and Surgical Enablers at Smith and Nephew thought this project had potential to make an impact in the medical field and encouraged the founders to submit a provisional patent application to the United States Patent Office.

The software will allow physicians to more quickly relieve pain in patients who may be experiencing discomfort due to an implant that needs revision.

This type of identification is important for revision surgery and planning, as well as having the ability to see what kinds of failures were seen or revision was needed.

"This is an excellent example of outcomes we are anticipating with our clinical needs finding course that allows our students to identify healthcare problems based on community needs and subsequently design solutions during the capstone senior design sequence," said Raj Rao, professor and department head of biomedical engineering. "I would like to thank members of our industrial advisory board, Kris Hanby, John White and Brian McKinnon for providing critical guidance to our students that allowed Patrick and Noahlana to translate their idea to address real-life problems," Rao added.