OVERVIEW

orthoSIM is offered from a web portal that approaches to surgeons and implant designers the use of a sophisticated and clinically validated Finite Element Model (FEM) of the several anatomical parts of the body for simulation.

The main goal of this service is that users with non-advanced computer skills can profit of the simulation for a better understanding of the biomechanical behaviour of instrumented human joints, thus reducing the probability of implant failure by selecting an implant more appropriate to the patient's characteristics and surgery type.

Architecture

The main elements of the portal’s architecture are the following:

• Simulation portal. Located at a remote Internet Service Provider. It hosts all web pages visited by the end users, the application and the central database.
• Simulation gateway. This server controls and triggers the simulation cycle, acting as an interface between the simulation portal and the simulation server. It is located at the model’s owner facilities.
• Simulation server. This is the machine that hosts the simulation engine, together with all necessary data transformation software. It provides the results in form of text and graphics.
• Simulation engine. This comprises all software applications that run the finite element models and which calculate the results of each simulation request.

In this platform, you can subscribe to the orthoSIM newsletter, which will keep you informed about any relevant news in the orthopaedic surgery sector.

Simulation services

orthoSIM operates in the following manner:

• The implant manufacturers interested supply their implants for mechanical modelling and parameterization. This enables these implants to be used for simulations.
• The implant manufacturers will sponsor this service to the surgeons, giving them a login and free credits to carry out simulations using their implant systems. Alternatively health centres insurance companies, universities, etc may buy credits to launch unrestricted simulations.
• Clinical users and implant designers will launch simulations (single or comparative studies) from the Web using their password. The portal will submit useful results with a delay of minutes.

The simulation process follows several steps:

1. The simulation gateway detects a pending simulation job at the simulations portal’s input tray.
2. The simulation gateway downloads the input data and any other relevant information for launching the simulation.
3. The simulation gateway provides the simulation server with all necessary data and triggers the start of simulation.
4. The simulation engine runs the simulation request and when finished, provides the results to an output tray in the simulation server.
5. The simulation gateway detects these results and transfers them to the simulation portal.
6. The simulation portal alerts the user of the pending results (by an email), which are stored in the portal waiting for download.

The system delivers a dynamic graph showing the implant-patient behaviour, as well as a summary report with the 'biomechanical analysis' established by comparison with reference values.

Learning service

The telematic platform has several functionalities oriented to the exploitation of knowledge within the clinical case database.

orthoSIM is supported by a database of anonymous cases. This database is continously updated with presurgical and postsurgical patient information. This is necessary for validating the tool and this permits to hold open discussion among specialized forum members.

The system offers:

• Specialized courses for clinical users and engineers.
• A database of clinical cases, open for consultation.
• A virtual forum for professionals (threaded discussion boards, chats, document exchange, etc).
• A virtual library for scientific articles and related research.
• A showcase of recommended products and innovations in the field of spine implants.