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A Motorized Shaver for Disc Space

Team: Eric Gruber '07, Tietjen Hynes '06 B.E.'07, Derek Toms '07
Advisor: Peter J. Robbie
Sponsor: Dilip Sengupta, MD, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, N.H.

The project goal was to design a motorized shaver for the accurate and efficient cleaning of disc material from the vertebral endplate during spinal fusion or disc replacement surgery. Although limited by in-house machining capabilities, we nonetheless were able to create a large-scale working model that incorporated our designed cutting blade, power transmission system, and bone protection system. Successful testing results showed that our shaver was 85 percent more efficient than the current surgical method involving manual tools. Furthermore, we created a final computer design model of our shaver at surgical scale, with detailed recommendations for components and assembly methods.

team
(L to R) Derek Toms, Tietjen Hynes, Eric Gruber with the motorized shaver