Innovative Ex Fix Device Facilitates Improved Stability And Efficiency

Since its inception several years ago, DNE’s System for Externally Aligning Limbs (SEAL) has received positive reviews from surgeons who have used the external fixation system.

By combining two key components — angular correction clamps and a rail system — the SEAL system has enabled surgeons treating a variety of conditions to achieve greater alignment of the foot and ankle, thus leading to improved patient outcomes, according to DNE, the manufacturer of the device.

It is an approach that continues to evolve, most notably with the manufacturer’s recent introduction of the SEAL Speed Frame.  

Thomas Rocchio, DPM, has been using the SEAL system for about four years and says the Speed Frame has become his fixation of choice for rearfoot and ankle trauma. Describing the device as ideal for closed or open fractures, Dr. Rocchio points to a variety of benefits, including reduced operation time, increased stability and reduced residual deformity.   

“The most unique features of the SEAL Speed Frame are the struts and the coupling collets. When you are performing initial gross correction and subsequent interoperative or post-op fine tuning, the SEAL fixation struts held by the collet clamp allow reduction of any angle or any length deformity without ever having to exchange for another size,” says Dr. Rocchio, a Fellow of the American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons, who is in private practice at PA Foot and Ankle Associates in Pennsylvania.

Dominic Angelo Rizzo, DPM, FACFAS, a co-developer of the Speed Frame, says the product grew out of “a need to treat all types of limb deformities utilizing external fixation in a quick acute setting within a trauma situation [or] a recon-structive situation, and for angular and staged limb corrective deformities.”

Dr. Rizzo, a board-certified lower extremity surgeon practicing at Foot and Ankle Specialists of Cincinnati, says the goal was to create a compactly packaged fixator that came pre-built with all of the necessary equipment. In other words, the fixator would be a device that Dr. Rizzo says surgeons could store in the OR, pull off the shelf and be “95 percent ready to go for usage with the flick of the wrist.”

According to the device’s manufacturer, surgeons can employ the Speed Frame for multiple uses, including midfoot, rearfoot and ankle arthrodesis as well as Charcot foot.

Among the unique features of the device that Dr. Rizzo points to is the capacity of the Speed Frame’s strut system “to endure wire and pin site application that provide positional correction to the pathoanatomy.” No other strut system on the market can endure this type of force without structural fatigue or failure, according to Dr. Rizzo.

Dr. Rocchio cites additional benefits of the Speed Frame, including the ability to easily fold a strut down to access the patient’s anatomy for debridement or closure.

“This easy anatomic access post-frame application with a simple detachment of the collet clamp has not only saved time but also improved patient outcome,” notes Dr. Rocchio.

Describing what makes the Speed Frame unique in today’s market, Dr. Rizzo sums it up by saying: “The Speed Frame allows the surgeon to bring the frame to the anatomy/pathology while other frames require the surgeon to bring the anatomy/pathology to the frame.”

Ms. Garthwait is a freelance writer who lives in Downingtown, Pa.