What Is a 3D Printing System?
These are healthcare facilities that incorporate 3D (three-dimensional) technologies and AM (additive manufacturing) technologies to print, customize, and manufacture dental or surgical templates, devices, implants, reconstruction material, and much more. These units commonly comprise 3D printers in large healthcare facilities near the hospitals, with post-processing equipment, with the modern digitization technology needed for the conversion of medical or dental images obtained into direct 3D models. The establishment of these units near healthcare facilities, hospital settings, or clinical settings is intended primarily for faster delivery and to achieve the proper clinical outcomes for the oral surgeon at a faster pace in comparison to the conventional 2D (two-dimensional) technologies or modalities.
What Are the Clinical Applications of 3D Technologies in OMFS?
The clinical practice of OMFS (oral and maxillofacial surgery) is one of the most complicated, demanding, and challenging branches of medicine. Also, the patient's need for improved facial esthetics and functions is essential to be fulfilled or fabricated by the oral and maxillofacial surgeon, keeping in mind the complex orofacial anatomy. In the OMFS field, many varied and delicate functions require the use of 3D technologies in current practice. These are:
-
Restoring the patient's masticatory (chewing) efficiency.
-
Restoring eye movements.
-
Phonetics.
-
Correction of facial expressions.
-
Correction of facial asymmetry.
-
Management of temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorders.
-
Treating oral pathologies.
-
Management of periodontal disease or tooth mobility.
-
Management of tumor resection and cancer surgeries.
-
In cases of oral and maxillofacial trauma.
What Are the Benefits of 3D Printing in OMFS?
The benefits of 3D printing in the OMFS field include:
-
In the Management of Orofacial Trauma: 3D printing technologies that are a part of the 3DP PoC (3D printing point of care) facilities that are utilized within large healthcare facilities, infrastructure, or campuses would help in reducing the period in fabricating the anatomic models, the fixation screws, the devices, etc for instance that are used in the treatment of mandibular fractures or lower jaw fractures and reconstruction. Because maxillofacial trauma injuries are extremely complicated and challenging clinical cases to deal with even for the maxillofacial surgeon, it is imperative to consider the reduction in overall treatment time. Fortunately, with the advent of 3D technologies and AM technologies, custom designs for patients can be enabled for fabricating the models or devices in the field of trauma or injuries, and with this, the added benefit is that patients' post-operative complications would be minimized too.
-
Planning Orthognathic Surgery: The conventional 2D technology is associated with several limitations in OMFS for diagnosis, surgical planning, or even for traditional splint fabrication in orthognathic surgeries. With the advent of 3D technologies and 3D printing, with CT (computed tomography) and CBCT (cone beam computed tomography) technologies in dentistry currently, preoperative dental imaging is one of the fundamental pillars in treatment planning and the design of workflow for surgeons before the surgical procedures. Digitization, for instance of the patient's dental arches, the transfer of anatomic landmarks into the splints or dental models, the high-resolution acquisition of the occlusal arches of the patient, etc are some of the benefits of 3D radiographic techniques. For the implant surgeon or the oral and maxillofacial surgeon particularly, it is important to fabricate the custom osteotomy guides for surgical maneuvers through 3D planning. This is for obtaining the 3D radiographic templates, surgical guide templates, splints, models, wafers, and others to sequentially position as well as guide the surgeon during the procedure to execute the operation to precision or perfection.
-
3D Digitization and Management for Maxillofacial Tumors and Maxillofacial Reconstruction: As one knows, oral cancers or malignancies account for nearly 3 percent of all the worldwide cancers detected with most often an abysmal prognosis because they are usually detected at an advanced or later stage. This can further be challenging to the oral and maxillofacial surgeon as well because extensive resection of the oral or facial cancers can result in compromised facial esthetics and it would pose critical challenges in rebuilding or restructuring the patient's esthetic contours. Also with only the 2D technologies in place in dentistry for many decades, oral cancers have been detected according to pathologic research at later stages that can increase the mortality risk for affected patients. By 3D radiographic modalities, by 3D design or 3DP technologies, from assessing the tumors preoperatively to planning conservative removal of the tumor margins to prevent tumor recurrence, resection designs, and surgical cutting guides can be easily fabricated for the oral and maxillofacial surgeon. This can definitely lead to an improved prognosis when the cancers are detected in time and also by conservative resection planning of the oral tumors.
Similarly for instance, in the case of mandibular jaw tumors resection or removal, most often the patients require grafts for reconstruction of a specific part of the orofacial cavity. Hence virtually guided osteotomies are used (that are a part of a 3D guide) for autologous bone graft harvests, for graft fit, and for their proper enabling in the patient's jaw. Fixation techniques in the current OMFS field are also nfluenced by virtual surgical planning (that has in fact seen tremendous current progress) in facial or mandibular reconstruction.
Conclusion
In the field of oral and maxillofacial surgery, there are multiple clinical applications of 3D printing. In fact this field has seen tremendous progress over the last few decades in dentistry and oral surgery. This is because the facial skeleton is a complex structure to deal with and be in its reconstruction, such as in the case of fractures, in the treatment of facial asymmetry in patients, in the treatment of fractures of the orbit or blowout fractures, maxillary or mandibular fractures (upper or lower jaw fractures), in dental implantation, in zygomatic implants, in the re-establishment of original volume, and in restoring facial and bone aesthetics or functions in patients. These are some of the multivariate functions of 3D printing in the oral and maxillofacial surgery field currently.
