FrakturOpt: SZENARIS and Fraunhofer MEVIS Develop Training Simulator for Wrist Fracture Surgery

In the project “T!Raum – MOIN – FrakturOpt: Training, Simulation and Optimization in Hand Surgery” funded by the Bundesministerium für Forschung, Technologie und Raumfahrt (BMFTR), SZENARIS, as a partner of the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Medicine MEVIS, is developing a training simulator and a demonstrator for surgical planning of wrist fractures, i.e., distal radius fractures.

Depending on their severity, distal radius fractures can be treated conservatively or surgically. In surgical treatment, the minimally invasive procedure presents surgical staff with the challenge of not having a direct view of the bone fragments. This makes it difficult to correctly assemble or align (reposition) the bone fragments and can lead to malalignment, loss of function, or other complications such as nerve irritation. This is where FrakturOpt comes in, integrating mathematical methods into a training and surgical planning system. This allows surgeons to practice anatomically correct bone assembly and provides support in preparing for real surgeries. The goal is to improve the precision and safety of the procedures.

Fraunhofer MEVIS is using FrakturOpt to develop deep learning models for segmenting bones and bone fragments from CT (computed tomography) data obtained from real clinical cases. Fraunhofer MEVIS is also incorporating optimization methods known as fracture puzzle algorithms, which can be used to automatically align fracture fragments. SZENARIS integrates these technologies into a training simulator and a demonstrator for surgical planning. In doing so, SZENARIS draws on the experience and training system from the project “HaptiVisT – Development and Evaluation of a Haptic-Visual Learning System for Surgical Procedures.”

FrakturOpt is a project of the MOdellregion INdustriemathematik (Model Region Industrial Mathematics), or #MOIN for short, which is funded as part of the BMFTR funding program “T!Raum – Transferräume für die Zukunft von Regionen” (Transfer Spaces for the Future of Regions).  #MOIN has set itself the goal of strengthening the social and economic benefits of mathematics through research-based exchange between science, industry, and society. FrakturOpt uses mathematical methods for individualized care in hand surgery.