In today's surgery it is often needed to separate human or animal bone tissue in plural pieces, to remove the single pieces from each other and to reassemble the pieces again. For example, in many applications in reconstructive surgery it is necessary to separate a bone in plural pieces and to reassemble the plural pieces in an adapted position for reshaping the bone to a target shape or situation. One example of such a reconstructive surgery application is correction of a patient's overbite. Thereby, in some cases the maxilla is divided in two or more pieces and reassembled in a target position. In the target position the two portions of the bone grow together during the healing process or are fixed together and the bone is reshaped accordingly. For separating or dividing the bone in such an application suitable cutting tools are used which allow applying a cut to the bone.
Or in other surgery applications it is necessary to temporarily divide a bone, e.g., in order to access a space covered by the bone. For example, in order to access the interior of the chest, e.g. in order to access the heart or lung, often the sternum is divided apart and reassembled after the intervention in the original position. Similarly, also for such dividing suitable bone cutting tools are used for separating the bone apart.
A problem occurring in today's surgery including separation of human or animal bone tissue is that conventional cutting tools usually have an insufficient precision such that reassembling the bone tissue causes adverse effects or an unsatisfying result. For example, conventional surgical saws produce a comparably wide cut and thereby remove comparably much bone substance. Also conventional cutting tools often cause collateral damages to the bone tissue near the cut which are to prevent if possible.
In this context, cutting tools have been developed which allow for an improved precise cutting of human and animal bone tissue. For example, WO 2011/035792 A1 describes a computer assisted and robot guided laser osteotome medical device. This device uses a robot arm guided laser, such as an Er:YAG laser, to cut human or animal bone tissue by photoablating the tissue along a predefined osteotomic line. With such a device bone or other bone tissue can be cut with comparably high precision and comparably low collateral damages.
However, even though the mentioned modern cutting tools allow for improved applications in surgery, cutting bone tissue for reassembling it in a target position or shape can still be problematic. In particular, after being reassembled, the separated portions of the bone tissue can be at least comparably slightly shifted or moved in relation to each other such that the reassembled bone tissue is not precisely reshaped or rearranged in the target position. A possible way for preventing such shifting or moving can be to fix the separated portions of the bone tissue in the target position by external mechanical means such as screws, nails or the like. Such fixing can, however, be comparably cumbersome and laborious. Additionally, often the cut apart portions of the bone tissue are not suitably shaped in order to be properly reassembled in the target position such that auxiliary constructions have to be used.
Therefore, there is a need for cutting human or animal bone tissue in manner allowing reassembling cut apart portions of the bone tissue in a manner adapted to the intended application.