Dr. Ramon Cestero at Advanced Surgical Retractors Inc had a  vision: a lightweight, rapidly deployable, self-retaining abdominal surgical retractor that could provide the same tissue exposure as the cumbersome table-mounted state-of-the-art retractor systems. Our industrial design team began to generate ideas through brainstorming, market research, product tear-downs, and concept sketching. Concept downselection was based on product cost, weight, manufacturing/assembly complexity, sterilizability, ease of use, and ergonomics.

From concept sketches, concept CAD models were created to facilitate rapid prototyping and initial FEA simulations. 3D printed prototypes were evaluated and iterated upon over a process of months, with surgeon feedback received at each step of the way.

Robust prototypes were needed to evaluate performance of design concepts. Initial inexpensive and easily machined aluminum and steel prototypes helped further refine the conceptual design, until a fully functional like-material unit was needed. Titanium prototypes allowed for complete, reliable, and realistic evaluation of the design.