ReviewFrontiers in medical technology2025
Drilling around the corner: a comprehensive literature review of steerable bone drills.
Review in Frontiers in medical technology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Introduction: Orthopedic procedures often require drilling of tunnels through bone, for instance for the introduction of implants. The currently used rigid bone drills make it challenging to reach all target areas without damaging surrounding anatomy. Steerable bone drills are a promising solution as they enable access to larger volumes and the creation of curved tunnels thereby reducing the risk of harm to surrounding anatomical structures. Method: This review provides a comprehensive overview of steerable bone drill designs identified in patent literature via the Espacenet database and in scientific literature accessed via the Scopus data base. A Boolean search combined with pre-set inclusion criteria returned 78 literature references describing a variety of drill designs. Results: These drill designs could be categorized based on how the drilling trajectory was defined. Three methods to influence the drilling trajectory were identified: (1) the device (57% of the sources), (2) the environment (15% of the sources): the path is defined based on the tissue interaction forces with the surrounding bone or (3) the user defines the drilling trajectory (28% of the sources). Discussion: The comprehensive overview of steerable drilling methods provides insights in the possibilities in drill design and may be used as a source of inspiration for the design of novel steerable drill designs.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.