High-profile, anatomy-specific craniofacial implants for combined hard and soft tissue reconstruction with embedded technology for medicine delivery

Abstract

An anatomy-specific implant for neuroplastic surgery. The implant includes a soft tissue implant component designed within and adapted to replace or restore missing soft tissue in a skull, joint or spine of the patient, wherein the soft tissue implant component is adapted to be coupled by an interdigitated connection to a rigid component. The rigid component can be a skull implant adapted to replace missing cranial or vertebral bone, or healthy cranial or vertebral bone, either of which can have downward extending catheters for medicinal brain or spinal cord infusion to help bypass the blood-brain barrier via multiphase flow. The soft tissue implant may include a functional component having neurotechnologies such as MRI-lucent pumps, Bluetooth connection systems, refillable diaphragms, remote imaging devices, wireless charging capabilities, and/or informative biosensors. The soft tissue implant component may be interchangeable with another soft tissue implant component in plug-and-play fashion.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . An anatomy-specific implant, comprising:
 a bone implant adapted to replace missing bone or healthy bone in need of removal; and   a soft tissue implant adapted to replace missing soft tissue and occupy a soft tissue space around the bone replaced by the bone implant, the soft tissue implant being coupled to the bone implant;   wherein a functional component is embedded within an interior space of a body of the soft tissue implant, and the functional component comprises at least one catheter for delivery of medicine, and   wherein the bone implant and soft tissue implant are anatomy-specific and not patient-specific.   
     
     
         2 . The implant of  claim 1 , wherein the bone implant is a spinal bone implant or an orthopedic joint bone implant. 
     
     
         3 . The implant of  claim 2 , wherein the functional component is configured for medicine infusion in spine or orthopedic joint areas. 
     
     
         4 . The implant of  claim 3 , wherein the orthopedic joint areas comprise a hip, knee, shoulder and ankle. 
     
     
         5 . The implant of  claim 3 , wherein the medicine comprises chronic pain medicine and/or cancer treatment medicine. 
     
     
         6 . The implant of  claim 1 , wherein the soft tissue comprises one of small-sized, medium-sized, and large-sized dimensions to accommodate different degrees of expected soft tissue resorption. 
     
     
         7 . The implant of  claim 1 , wherein the soft tissue is configured to replace at least one of missing muscle, fat, or subcutaneous tissue around the bone. 
     
     
         8 . The implant of  claim 1 , wherein the soft tissue implant is coupled to the bone implant by a lock- and key connection. 
     
     
         9 . The implant of  claim 1 , wherein the functional component comprises a housing, a refillable reservoir, and at least one electro-osmotic pump. 
     
     
         10 . The implant of  claim 9 , wherein a diaphragm of the reservoir protrudes above a surface of the housing. 
     
     
         11 . The implant of  claim 9 , further comprising a processor, a wirelessly rechargeable battery, and a wireless communications device. 
     
     
         12 . The implant of  claim 1 , wherein the soft tissue implant is interchangeable with another soft tissue implant in a plug-and-play fashion. 
     
     
         13 . The implant of  claim 1 , wherein the functional component is further configured to remove or cure dysfunction, restore traumatized spinal cord, or to improve or superficially augment the aging central nervous system with external, wireless connections.