Workstation for Cardiothoracic Surgery

The present invention relates to a Workstation for cardiothoracic surgery, and more particularly, the present invention relates to an improved sternal retractor having various attachments there on for assisting a surgeon during a cardiothoracic surgery.

This is a novel concept of a Work Station for Surgeon for conduct of Surgery especially Cardiothoracic Surgery. The Work Station will essentially consist of an instrument to distract the midline incision, sternal blades with clip on 'U' shaped frame to act as railing for a number of applications .The sternal retractor will have a two way distraction system as opposed to the one way distraction system of the existing Finocheitto type retractor . The sternal retractor will have sensors for measuring the pressure applied on the sternal edges.

The 'U' shaped frame will be clipped on the sternal retractor .There will be multiple multi-jointed arms attached to the frame with the ability to move along the 'U' shaped frame.

The multi-joint arm will have a screw at the back to loosen or tighten to make multi-joint arm loose or stiff to keep in position .
The front of the Multi-joint arm will have a clip-on and off attachments for number of purposes.
The various types of front-end attachments will be :
a. Various sizes and shapes of Left Atrial retractors for left atrial retraction .
b. Valve Prosthesis holder for Aortic and Mitral Valve replacement.
c. Clip-on frames to hold vein grafts/arterial grafts for Coronary anastomosis.
d. LED cable holder to direct light inside the chest cavity.
e. Tube holder to hold suction tubes/vents and keep it away from surgeon's field of operation.
f. The multi-joint arm will also hold the blower-mister instrument to direct it where-ever required.
g. The 'U' shaped frame will be used to deploy stabilizers for off-pump Coronary Artery Bypass surgery.
h. The 'U' shaped frame will be used to hold containers for holding Surgical instruments like forceps, cautery pencil, wall-suckers etc.

The concept is therefore to construct a Work-Station like a building -block to assist in various stages of the operation and to de-construct it towards the end of the operation.

Advantages:-
i. The various multi-jointed arms will act like the hands of a surgical assistant.
ii. These arms will facilitate Surgery by holding the various instruments in place to conduct Surgery in a neat and orderly fashion.
iii. The building blocks concept of the workstation will help in the smooth conduct of the operation without the need for exchange of sternal retractor instruments which usually occurs during the operation leading to wastage of time and energy.

Manufacturability :-
All the equipments reaquired to assemble the Workstation are readily available in the market. So assembling the Workstation needs no customize/Special Manufacturing.

Marketability:-
This instrument will considerably bring down the cost of surgery, which will be the most attractive feature of it. This Instrument although designed for Cardiothoracic Surgery , later can be used for all types of invasive surgeries.