An automated osteotomy design for autologous bone grafts in craniofacial surgery

In the treatment of craniofacial osseous defects it is frequently required that the surgeon has to graft bone to replace a missing or surgically removed segment. The reconstruction of this area poses a difficult challenge owing to the complexity of its bony structures as well as to its great importance for the chewing and speech ability. A common method of surgically reconstructing the craniofacial region involves using autologous grafts. By using the registration framework a novel surgery planning method has been developed. The method enables computer-aided selection of optimal donor sites for autologous bone grafts in the craniofacial surgery. The main advantage of the method is that after determination of the initial conditions and constraints it provides an automatic procedure to find the best fitting position. All generated solutions can be explored interactively on the computer display via an efficient graphical interface. Applying different similarity measures enables the surgeon to select the optimal donor site not only in terms of bone surface correlation but also according to the whole volumetric information contained in both data sets. This new approach permits more precise planning of the surgical procedure, reducing intraoperative time and improving the postoperative outcome.