Patent ID: 8903530

Claim:
A pre-operative planning and manufacturing method for orthopedic surgery comprising: obtaining pre-operative medical image data representing a joint portion of a patient; constructing a three-dimensional digital model of the joint portion and manufacturing a patient-specific alignment guide for the joint portion from the three-dimensional digital model of the joint portion when the image data is sufficient to construct the three-dimensional digital model of the joint portion, the patient-specific alignment guide having a three-dimensional patient-specific surface pre-operatively configured to nest and closely conform to a corresponding surface of the joint portion of the patient in only one position relative to the joint portion; and when there is insufficient data to construct the patient-specific alignment guide therefrom: determining, from the image data, a size of a non-custom implant to be implanted in the patient; selecting the non-custom implant from a group of non-custom implants of different sizes; and assembling a surgical kit containing the non-custom implant and a trial implant that corresponds to the non-custom implant.