Three‐dimensional simulation and prediction of craniofacial surgery

Abstract

The treatment of patients with complex facial deformities is one of the most challenging multidisciplinary tasks in plastic surgery. Due to advancements in medical technology and surgical techniques in the last 20 years correction of severe malformations has become possible and is performed by highly specialized teams frequently in a single operation. Recent developments in three-dimensional (3-D) imaging techniques have already greatly facilitated diagnosis of complex craniofacial deformities. Computer-based simulation methods for surgical procedures that are based on imaging data have the potential to improve surgical treatment by providing the ability to perform 'virtual surgery' preoperatively and thus reduce patient risk and morbidity intraoperatively. A method is presented for interactive computer-assisted craniofacial plastic surgery planning and visualization, especially simulation of soft tissue changes using an experimental Craniofacial Surgery Planner. The system computes non-linear soft-tissue deformation because of bone realignment. It is capable of simulating bone cutting and bone realignment with integrated interactive collision detection. Furthermore, soft-tissue deformation and cutting due to surgical instruments can be visualized. Simulation processes are based on an individual patient's preoperative 3-D computed tomography and on a 3-D, photo-realistic model of the patient's preoperative appearance obtained by a laser range scanner. Very fast and robust prediction of non-linear soft-tissue deformation is computed by optimizing a non-linear cost function.

An Overview of Modelling Craniosynostosis Using the Finite Element Method

“…The present study focused on the FE models of craniosynostosis; however, there are a number of studies that have used computer-aided design and 3D printing to visualize different reconstructions of craniosynostosis for preoperative planning of this condition [e.g., Imai et al, 1999;Mommaerts et al, 2001;Meehan et al, 2003;Iyer et al, 2018]. These studies are clearly advancing the treatment of craniosynostosis, and models generated from these studies can be used to develop FE simulations of the skull growth to predict the outcomes of different reconstructions on a virtual platform.…”

The Validity of 3dMD Vultus in Predicting Soft Tissue Morphology Following Orthognathic Surgery

“…To reduce the processing burden an alternative deformation model termed Mass Spring Model (MSM) has been developed (Teschner, 2001;Meehan et al, 2003). In comparison to finite element models it has some important benefits.…”

Practical craniofacial surgery simulator based on GPU accelerated lattice shape matching

“…A mass-spring model consists of a set of point masses connected by springs, whose physics is straightforward. After the pioneering work of Terzopoulos [2], a large variety of these models have been implemented due to their simplicity and relatively low computation [3][4][5][6], with facial surgery simulation time to be less than 20 seconds. But the simplicity comes at the price of a few drawbacks, e.g., the system behavior depends on the way the spring network is set up; it is also difficult to tune the spring constants to get desired behavior.…”