Design and manufacturing of personalized implants and standardized templates for cranioplasty applications

Cranial (skull) defects are treated by the cranioplasty technique, which is required to protect underlying brain, correct major aesthetic deformities, or both. This research was aimed at investigating the technical solutions for cranioplasty treatments for the ASEAN countries based on available production and material technologies in this region. Solutions for design and manufacturing of personalized cranioplasty implants and a new concept of standardized templates (SDTs) for cranioplasty applications are presented. SDTs are made in mass production, based on the reverse engineering and rapid tooling techniques; they are used for preparing cranioplasty implants both pre- and intra-operatively. With the development of the design support database and program interfacing between the Medical Image Processing (MIP) and Computer Aided Design (CAD) system, the design time for the personalized cranioplasty implant was minimized to half a day. Through the use of SDTs, surgeons have a new solution to prepare implants in which the required skills are reduced. The cost of implants made by proposed solutions is acceptable for the ASEAN region.