The dog with a titanium leg

Dog to Sport New High-Tech Leg:

A German shepherd mix named Cassidy now has a chance to walk on all fours again, thanks to a surgical procedure conducted at NC State that has implications for the future of human prosthetics.

During a four-hour procedure last Thursday at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Dr. Denis Marcellin-Little, associate professor of orthopedics, inserted a titanium implant into the bone of Cassidy's missing right hind leg. In three months, after the implant has time to fuse with the bone, Cassidy's missing leg will be fitted with an osseointegrated prosthetic limb.

Marcellin-Little, 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 that could revolutionize human prosthetics.