Improvement in Cranioplasty: Advanced Prosthesis Biomanufacturing

Additive manufacturing (AM) is a technology that enables the production of models and prosthesis directly from the 3D CAD model facilitating surgical procedures, implant quality and reducing risks. Furthermore, the additive manufacturing has been used to produce implants especially designed for a particular patient, with sizes, shapes and mechanical properties optimized, in many areas of medicine such as cranioplasty surgery. This work presents AM technologies applied to design and manufacture of a biomodel, in fact, an implant for the surgical reconstruction of a large cranial defect. A series of computed tomography data was obtained and software was used to extract the cranial geometry. The protocol presented was used for creation of anatomic biomodel of the bone defect for the surgical planning as well as to design and manufacture of the patient-specific implant, reducing duration of surgery besides improving the surgical accuracy due to preoperative planning of the anatomical details.