Is 3d printed cranial repair technology ripe for the picking?

The cranium is a vital organ in the human body and plays an important role in protecting and supporting the brain and the organs of the head and face. However, there are many risk factors in life that may damage the skull, and patients with skull defects are often seen in neurosurgery clinics. Cranial defects can have a serious impact on the aesthetic appearance of the skull and neurological function, and therefore require prompt cranial repair. Cranial repair is a relatively routine operation in neurosurgery and is widely performed in clinical practice. The purpose of cranial bone repair is to restore the complete and closed cranial cavity and repair the nerve function damage on the one hand, and to restore the aesthetic appearance of the skull on the other hand. However, traditional cranial bone repair surgery, using titanium mesh or other materials, is difficult to achieve a good shape, and may not be able to restore the aesthetic symmetry of the shape after repair. But the good news is that there is a new type of polyether ether ketone PEEK material, can through three-dimensional reconstruction, 3d printing technology to produce a high degree of conformity with the structure of the skull repair plate, molding effect is good. So this 3d printing skull repair technology is mature? We might as well look at a case: 11-year-old girl from anhui xiaoyuan (a pseudonym), two years ago in front of the house when playing by a motorcycle head injury, critical condition, the local hospital emergency for the implementation of its “craniotomy hematoma removal + bilateral frontal top de-osseous flap decompression surgery”, after the operation, leaving the frontal temporal top of the three cranial defects, facing cranial bone repair. After the operation, three cranial defects in the frontotemporal and parietal regions were left behind, facing cranial repair. However, the morphology of the defective bone windows was complicated, and if titanium mesh was used, it might not be possible to achieve accurate and good shaping, which was unacceptable to a young girl who loved beauty. Later, her family brought Hope to the neurosurgery department of traumatology and cerebrovascular disease of our hospital. After diagnosis and evaluation by our team, we customized a personalized PEEK cranial bone patch for her through three-dimensional reconstruction and 3d printing technology, which perfectly matched the shape of the bone window, and successfully implemented PEEK cranial bone repair and plastic surgery, which was completed with good shaping, and the shape of Hope’s head was almost the same as that before her defect, and the patient and her family were very satisfied. The patient and her family were very satisfied. At present, the PEEK cranioplasty carried out by our team using 3d printing technology has been very mature, and the team has completed hundreds of surgeries and achieved good clinical results. And the team continues to improve and upgrade the technology, material optimization design, and the introduction of cosmetic plastic surgery concept, to achieve good repair results, to obtain the majority of patients and their families unanimously recognized.