Watch a family cat receive
a prosthetic leg implant at NC State. The artificial
limb was attached to the implant a few months
later. "He is
doing great," Ola Harrysson said.
Engineers help give
pets new legs
Mr. Fronz was born without a right hind foot, so he can’t run and jump like other cats.
But thanks to NC State University researchers, those days are ending for Mr. Fronz and other family pets born without limbs.
Harrysson has been working on the implants with Dr.
Denis Marcellin-Little in the College
of Veterinary Medicine, who performed the surgery on Mr. Fronz. Marcellin-Little specializes in treating dogs and cats with bone deformities.
The titanium prosthetics are unique because
they attach to the bones in the pets’ legs, allowing
the bone tissue to fuse with the implant. Harrysson and his team use modeling technology
to custom-build the devices.
Mr. Fronz’s surgery built upon earlier research performed for George Bailey,
a cat born without the lower half of its hind legs. In 2005, Harrysson and Marcellin-Little
collaborated on a prosthetic for George Bailey that involved inserting a titanium
nail into one of the cat’s legs and securing it with screws. The subsequent surgery
was initially successful - George Bailey began to run and jump and became very
active, so much so that after several months the unexpected stress exerted on
the prosthesis caused one of the screws to break. The implant for Mr. Fronz improved
upon this design.
This process of connecting the bone and the implant is called osseointegration,
and it’s rare even in humans. Only about 100 people have undergone the procedure,
all of them in Europe, Harrysson said.
Researchers hope the work on animals leads to better prosthetics for people who
were born without limbs or lost them in combat.
As for Mr. Fronz, he woke up a little groggy from the surgery, but he eventually
traveled with his owner back to his home in Ohio to recuperate. The cat recently
returned to Raleigh to have the artificial limb attached to the implant.
