Computer-aided surgical reduction of facial fractures

The successful surgical treatment of facial fractures is based primarily on the spatial judgment of the surgeon, who may utilize occlusal and skeletal relationships to confirm adequacy of the reduction. Although computed tomography (CT) scans are helpful visual representations of the fractures, they cannot be used directly to guide the reduction. Currently the surgeon may extract an approximate measurement of displacement or defect size from a CT scan, but intraoperatively he must reduce a fracture or place an implant based on his best guess, using adjacent normal skeleton as landmarks. Computer-aided surgery (CAS) can be used to bridge the discontinuity between preoperative CT scan images and intraoperative facial fracture reduction. This article summarizes our experience with CAS applications in the treatment of facial fractures.