Design of 3D-printed universal oral stent for tongue immobilization in head and neck radiotherapy

Abstract

The primary treatment for head and neck cancer is radiotherapy, which can cause complications and effects, such as the ability to speak, taste, produce saliva, and swallow. An oral stent is an immobilization tool for minimizing the dose in the tongue (or hard palate) by locking the tongue position during radiation delivery. It can improve the treatment accuracy due to less uncertainty caused by tongue position uncertainty between treatment fractions. However, commercial oral stents are not widely adopted in developing countries due to their unaffordable price. This study aimed to design the universal oral stent (UOS) to achieve high efficiency, ease to use, and low-cost fabrication based on 3D printing technology. There were five experiments to evaluate the UOS design and fabrication versus the modified cut syringe, including finite element analysis (FEA), the usability test, the micro Vickers hardness test, single beam dose analysis, and dose calculation on treatment plan simulations. The proposed UOS design and fabrication presented a high capability to apply for clinical use.