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Abstract

The invention provides methods and apparatus for accurately cutting bones with a surgical cutting device, such as a sagittal saw, using a surgical navigation system without use of a complex cutting jig. A surgical navigation system is used to navigate a guide tube to be used to drill a k-wire into the bone. The k-wire will act as a guide to control at least one degree of freedom of a saw blade for making a cut in the bone. In an exemplary high tibial osteotomy procedure, in which two intersecting planar cuts must be made in the tibia in order to remove a wedge of bone, a surgical navigation marker is mounted on the guide tube. The surgeon uses the surgical navigation system to navigate the guide tube to the desired varus-valgus angle and height of the first cut and then drills a k-wire into the tibia at that varus-valgus angle using the guide tube. The process is repeated for the second cut. The surgeon then uses the two k-wires as guides for controlling the varus-valgus angle of a sagittal saw for the two planar cuts. The surgeon rests the saw blade flat on the respective k-wire to define the varus-valgus angle of the cut. The saw itself also is navigated, with the surgical navigation system providing a display showing the surgeon at least (1) the varus-valgus angle, (2) the cut depth, and (3) the anterior-posterior slope. The anterior-posterior slope and the depth of the cut is controlled freehand by the surgeon.

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First Claim