3D designed in-house positioning and cutting guide system for genioplasty surgery. Technical note and case report

Abstract

Advances in 3D printing technology have the potential to significantly improve the workflow of maxillofacial surgical planning. In-house fabricated custom positioning and cutting guides allow for intraoperative reproduction of pre-planned osteotomy cuts, which can result in greater surgical accuracy and patient safety while maintaining an acceptable cost-effectiveness ratio. The design and creation of the customized surgical guides is performed in our hospital fab lab, which allows time savings, from an average of 10 days to just 24 hours, and a cost reduction of more than 90%. The process begins with the import of the pre-surgical facial CT scan into 3D software that allows to perform the surgical cuts virtually and the manipulation of the segments. Once the virtual planning of the surgery has been performed, the next step is the creation of the cutting and positioning guides. The final step is the printing of the guides in surgical resin and their sterilization. In addition, post-surgical models can be 3D printed to pre-mold the plates on them, which saves surgical time. The mentoplasty surgery is a simple example of how 3D surgery can be applied to maxillofacial surgery in an efficient way obtaining all the advantages of customized surgery with a limited investment in time and resources.

Key words:3Dsurgery, customized, personalized medicine, genioplasty, surgical guides, in house.