Patent ID: 8083781

Claim:
A bone bridge for use in stabilizing a bone fracture between two bone fragments, comprising: a first bone fragment plate having one or more mounting apertures for receiving one or more fasteners for attaching said first plate to a first bone fragment; a second bone fragment plate having one or more mounting apertures for receiving one or more fasteners for attaching said second plate to a second bone fragment; a guide structure for limiting the motion between said first and second bone plates to movement along a longitudinal axis defined by said bone fragments and linearly guiding the movement of said first bone plate with respect to said second bone plate; and an elastic polymer cable coupled to said first and second bone plates for generating a tensile force between said first and second bone plates along the longitudinal axis defined by said bone fragments in order to provide a compressive force between said bone fragments, wherein the elastic polymer cable is pre-tensioned such that an increase in the displacement between the first and second bone fragment plates requires a linear increase in the tensile force on the elastic polymer cable.