Additive manufacturing in maxillofacial reconstruction

Abstract

In this paper the benefits of using additive manufacturing technologies in maxillofacial reconstruction are highlighted. Based on a real clinical case, the paper describes the manufacture of an implant prototype replacing the right zygomatic bone and a part of maxilla using additive manufacturing technologies. The face is the most expressive part of the human body that makes us unique. It was shown that the maxillofacial prostheses help to improve the psychological state of patients affected by, because low self esteem feeling appears commonly to this patients with the facial defects. The aim of this paper is to show how using additive manufacturing technologies methods within this research, the producing a surgical model will help surgeon to improve the pre-operative planning. For this we used additive manufacturing technologies such as Stereolitography to achieve the biomodel and FDM-fused deposition modelling to obtain a prototype model because these technologies make it possible to obtain prosthesis according to the physical and mechanical requirements of the region of implantation.