Groundbreaking Surgical Procedure Will Allow Dog with Amputated Limb to Walk on Four Legs Again

Note to editors: Media are invited to view the surgery described below, scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. on Thursday, July 31. Photographers may shoot video and stills from outside the surgical theatre; footage from inside the theatre will be available immediately following the surgery. Interviews with Dr. Marcellin-Little and Dr. Harrysson will be available after the surgery. The owners of the dog are available for media interviews the day before the surgery. Media representatives interested in covering the story need to contact Tracey Peake at 919/515-6142 by Wednesday, July 30.

A pioneering North Carolina State University collaboration between a veterinary surgeon and an engineer will give a deserving dog the ability to walk on four legs again.

Cassidy, a male German shepherd mix, was adopted missing a portion of his right hind leg. His owner was referred to NC State’s College of Veterinary Medicine for surgery that will replace the lost leg with an osseointegrated prosthetic limb.

Dr. Denis Marcellin-Little, associate professor of orthopedics, and Dr. Ola Harrysson, associate professor of industrial and systems engineering, are pioneers in the area of osseointegration, a process that fuses a prosthetic limb with an animal’s (or human’s) bones. The result is a custom-designed, limb-sparing prosthesis that behaves more like a natural limb – and a technique with implications for the future of human prosthetics.

Marcellin-Little and Harrysson began their work on osseointegrated pet prosthetics in 2005 with a cat named George Bailey, who had been born without the lower half of his hind legs. Harrysson designed and built the limb in collaboration with his students and Marcellin-Little, who performed the surgery. The procedure involved inserting a titanium nail into one of the legs and securing it with screws.

Since then, the collaborators have improved and strengthened the design, and Cassidy’s limb surgery will be the third of its kind- and the first such surgery on a dog -  performed at NC State.

“This research collaboration, along with new technologies, has made it possible for us to custom design and directly fabricate metal prosthetic implants in a timely and economical fashion,” Harrysson says. “Ten years ago this process would have taken much longer, cost much more and not been as accurate. We see this process becoming even faster and more cost-effective in the future.”

The researchers hope that Cassidy won’t be the sole beneficiary of this surgery.

“The implications for this procedure are huge,” Marcellin-Little says. “As we gain more experience with the surgical technique and the design of the limbs, we see the possible benefits for humans – implants that allow the prosthetic limbs to attach without chafing or irritation, and limbs with more natural ranges of motion. We believe that this is the future of prosthetics.”