Author/Editor		Strojnik, Tadej; Drstvenšek, Igor
Title		Custom made cranioplasty prostheses
Type		članek
Source		4448575
Publication year		2012
Volume		str. 1-15
Language		eng
Abstract		The treatment of cranial bone defects is a growing problem in current neurosurgical practice. The main lesions leading to cranioplasty are: decompressive craniectomies, tumoural pathology, multifragmentary fractures of the skull, infection, bone re-absorption and rejection of the graft. Nowadays there is an increased use of decompressive craniectomies not only in treatment of posttraumatic cerebral oedema but also for relieving raised intracranial pressure in catastrophic cerebrovascular incidents. This has led to a considerable number of patients surviving those events and having a surgical bone defect to be corrected. The patients own bone flap is not an ideal solution due to problems of conservations, bone deformations after freezing, infection and/or re-absorption of the implant. The available materials include polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA), titanium, ceramics and other resin and alloy types. The ideal material for cranioplasty must be: viable, inert malleable, available radiolucent, sterilizable, stable biocompatible and inexpensive. Unfortunately no artificial material fulfils all stated requirements. The aim of our work is to demonstrate our experiences and evolution of surgical techniques from free hand modelling of the implant to custom made devices from processing of CT images and using rapid prototyping and rapid manufacturing techniques
Keywords		cranial defect polymethylmetacrylate titanium rapid prototyping rapid manufacturing kranialna poškodba polimetilmetakrilat titan hitra izdelava hitra proizvodnja