Patent ID: 8628534

Claim:
A method for cutting the pedicle region of a vertebra during spinal surgery with an ultrasonic cutting tool, comprising: providing a pathway into the pedicle of vertebrae to be cut; locating an ultrasonic cutting tool into said pathway at a fixed distance, wherein said tool contains an ultrasonic transducer element for producing an ultrasonic output; a rotatable handpiece sized and oriented to contain the ultrasonic transducer; a lateral cutting tip associated with the ultrasonic transducer element, wherein the lateral cutting tip oriented perpendicular to the ultrasonic transducer; and a geared mechanism for rotating said lateral cutting mechanism in response to rotation of the rotatable handpiece relative to the ultrasonic cutting tool; a convective cooling pathway associated with the lateral cutting tip; rotating said lateral cutting tip in a circumferential manner about an eccentric axis of the ultrasonic cutting tool by rotating the rotatable handpiece to engage the geared mechanism to extend said lateral cutting tip from within said pathway to a predetermined position, the eccentric axis being a center of rotation of the lateral cutting tip and parallel to a longitudinal axis of the ultrasonic cutting tool; and at the predetermined position, rotating said lateral cutting tip about the longitudinal axis of the ultrasonic cutting tool by rotating the rotatable handpiece and thus rotating the ultrasonic cutting tool with the lateral cutting tip extended to form a circumferential groove in the surrounding pedicle of the pathway, wherein heat generated by the lateral cutting tip is removed using the convective cooling pathway.