The customized mandible substitute based on rapid prototyping

Traditional standard bone substitutes cannot realize the individualized matching for the bones of different patients. In order to make a bone substitute match the shape of a patient's bone easily, a technology based on reverse engineering (RE) and rapid prototyping (RP) is put forward to design and fabricate a customized bone substitute. By RE, the customized bone substitute is designed according to the CT sectional pictures, and the customized localizer is designed to locate the customized bone substitute in the patient's body at the right position. A customized mandible substitute designed and fabricated by RE and RP has been put into clinical use and is discussed in detail. The results confirm that the advantage of RP in the field of bone restoration is that it can fabricate the customized bone substitute rapidly and accurately.