Vertical Maxillary Measurements using a Virtual External Reference Point in Orthognathic Surgery: Technical...

Area of Science:

• Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
• Medical Imaging and Simulation
• Orthognathic Surgery

Background:

• Accurate vertical positioning of the upper jaw is critical in orthognathic surgery.
• Current methods using external reference points (ERPs) are prone to errors.
• Triangulation effects from maxillary movements can skew distance measurements.

Purpose of the Study:

• To address inaccuracies in calculating vertical jaw position during orthognathic surgery.
• To propose a method for correcting errors caused by triangulation effects.
• To enhance the precision of surgical planning through computer-assisted simulation.

Main Methods:

• Implementing virtual customization of ERPs within computer-assisted surgical simulation software.
• Replicating the surgical reference system in a virtual environment.
• Measuring baseline and target vertical distances within the virtual planning software.

Main Results:

• The proposed virtual customization method corrects for triangulation effects.
• This technique simplifies the calculation of goal distances for ERPs.
• Accurate pre-operative measurements can be achieved by accounting for maxillary movements.

Conclusions:

• Virtual customization of ERPs offers an easy and effective solution to measurement errors in orthognathic surgery.
• This method improves the reliability of vertical jaw position planning.
• Computer-assisted surgical simulation enhances surgical accuracy and patient outcomes.