Skeletal Approach to Mandible Reconstruction Represented as an Image

Abstract

ABSTRACTMandible or facial bone reconstruction is a serious challenge in craniomaxillofacial surgery. Considering the complex shape and structure of the mandible, careful presurgical planning or availability of objective methods to analyse the patient mandible is necessary to achieve predictable outcomes. It has become evident that methods that can retrieve back the exact shape and structure of the mandibular defect across any anatomical location of the mandible are required. Skeletons, a dimensionally reduced version of the shape, are an important descriptor capable of capturing the most relevant features. In this paper, a technique to retrieve the shape of the mandible from its skeleton properties, by comparing it to the skeleton of a mandible with no defects, also called template mandible has been addressed. It is also employed to correct the mandibular structure for the type of discontinuity in it, to obtain a reconstructed mandible. This will enable to look at how the defect or the discontinuity in t...