Dec 8, 2015 | By Kira
Senior surgeon Xie MingJi from Taipei, Taiwan, has used 3D printing technology to successfully and significantly reduce surgery time and risk related to complex orthognathic, corrective jaw, or cheek reduction surgeries. The technique involves creating a 3D printed 1:1 size skull model of the patient, which allows doctors to much more accurately assess and plan these normally high-risk, complicated operations. The technique was recently demonstrated in front of an audience of international surgeons from the US, Singapore, Thailand, Mainland China and many other countries.
Though recovery from any type of surgery can be a long and arduous journey, it can be particularly emotionally distressful for patients whose entire physical appearance have been changed as a result of a medical procedure. That is the case for patients who must undergo facial skeletal, cheek reduction or orthognathic surgery, that is, corrective surgery of skeletal and dental irregularities involving the face and/or jaw.
For check reduction surgeries in particular, doctors must make a tiny incision inside the patient’s mouth in order to remove the part of the mandible (lower-jaw) that is either too large or too broad. In these cases, the risks related to surgery are twofold: on the one hand, one misstep could affect the delicate facial nerves, resulting in partial facial paralysis or numbness. On the other hand, doctors must also remain aware of the client’s physical appearance. Because the incision is so small, doctors may end up removing uneven sections, resulting in an asymmetrical appearance. And while correcting the medical issue is no doubt more important than physical appearance, such a dramatic change in physical appearance can have negative psychological affects on the patient and be very difficult to overcome.
In order to reduce both of these risks, Taiwanese surgeons Xie MingJi and Jiang Hou Ren have independently developed a 3D printing technique in which 3D scanned photos and CT scans are used to create an exact 1:1 size 3D printed skull model. This allows them to accurately assess the patient-specific requirements for each surgery and also gives the patients the opportunity to better understand the procedure and its expected outcome. The result in existing cases in Taiwan has been zero-error cheek reduction and orthognathic surgeries.
Xie MingJi and Jian Hou Ren have been involved in using 3D printing technology to enhance surgical accuracy and safety since the early stages of the technology, from sourcing foreign 3D printing manufacturers, to working with local Taiwanese companies to develop the professional medical 3D printing field. With this most recent advancement in 3D printing for orthognathic and cheek reduction surgeries, they have created the first tailored 3D guide, titled “3D printing to navigate reduction surgery” in order to share the technology with the international medical community and show others how 3D printing has helped to shorten operation and recovery time, while reducing risk and improving accuracy and patient safety.
In addition to those benefits, from a cosmetic point of view, using 3D printed models for cheek reduction surgery can help to optimize facial features, and even be used for patients who have had failed surgeries in the past and want to undergo a second plastic surgery. So far, surgeons have been able to use this application of 3D printing for surgeries involving the forehead, chin, cheeks, nasolabial folds, and other parts of the face, while the next step will be to add the nose to that list.
Posted in 3D Printing Application
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