CNC-Adjustable Press Mold for Orbital Floor Reconstruction Surgery
Team Members Heading link
- Nelofer Arjumand
- Heba Kanah
- Shivani Senguttuvan
- William Winski
Advisors: Miiri Kotche, PhD, Anthony E. Felder, PhD
Sponsor: Lee Alkureishi
Project Description Heading link
Orbital floor reconstruction surgery restores the form of the fractured floor and medial wall found in the maxillofacial skeleton. The surgery requires the insertion of a shaped titanium surgical mesh plate to provide structural support to the damaged bones of the orbital floor. A common cost-effective, yet time consuming method of shaping titanium plates is trial and error, where the surgeon attempts to identify the optimal anatomical position by repeatedly shaping a titanium plate. The proposed method attempts to shape titanium plates which can address the facial abnormalities of the eye for patients undergoing orbital floor reconstruction surgery to decrease the time and cost of patient-specific models. An Anet A8 3D printer was modified such that the heating plate, cooling fans, and the safety protocol on the extruder motor were disabled to meet our design specifications. A machined pin bed containing 16 hexagonally packed cylindrical sockets was integrated with the modified 3D printer to hold pins that will generate a surface topology. Additionally, a script was written in G-code to extrude the X, Y and Z motor to each position of the pin bed. A second 3D printer will be used to house another pin bed, which will generate a mirror image of the first pin bed. The two pin beds press together to bend the titanium mesh plates required for the surgery. Next steps include using MATLAB to design an STL manipulation algorithm to output G code commands which will generate a contoured topology. The titanium plates will be shaped according to this patient-specific contoured topology, allowing it to be used in surgery. The solution enables physicians to decrease their time in the operating room without compromising accuracy when performing this surgical procedure.
See supporting documentation in the team’s Box drive.