3-D printed surgical guides make surgeries more predictable

The Indian Dental Association, Deccan Branch, hosted a Continuing Dental Education Program, Senior Dentist Dr K Mahendranadh Reddy, Chairman of Indian council of Prosthodontic research and Secretary -Association of Asian Prosthodonitcs, delivered the lecture on 'Guided Surgeries and 3D Printed Surgical Templates' on Tuesday at Katriya Hotels and Towers. Over 200 dentists from across the state attended the programme.

Speaking on the occasion Dr Mahendranadh Reddy, a senior academician and researcher with a rich experience in Prosthetics and prosthodontics, said Surgical guides have become essential in contemporary dental care and can bring about increased accuracy, safety and predictability while operating on a patient.

The customised 3D Printed guides allow the procedure to be carried out only in the identified anatomical area, ensure safety by limiting the access to protect the neighboring blood vessels and tissues and increase predictability as the whole process would have been thought through while creating the guide.

The Surgical guides have become paramount for Dental surgeries, especially for inserting implants which are very intricate. The guides help to obtain maximum aesthetic result while limiting the depth of the drill as well as the implant. The Surgical guides are also becoming popular in spine surgeries where surgeons face difficulty to reach the specified area without impacting the nervous system.

They are being increasingly used for knee replacement and hip replacement surgeries as cutting guidesand for complex fractures involving difficult orientation of the bones in orthopaedic surgeries.

The 3D Printed Surgical Guides present enormous advantages over the traditional guides. The traditional guides don’t facilitate easy access in cases where there is a difficulty in approaching the intended anatomical site and the surgeon is compelled to reposition the guide multiple times to adjust to the orientation of problem area.

Especially the traditional dental guides made using panoramic radiography are prone to expansion and distortion, setting error etc. leading to mal-positioning of implants during placement. Also they were less stable during surgery. The 3D Printed Surgical Guides on the other hand are accurate, fit perfectly to the anatomical site, as they are based on patient’s MRI/ CT scan data.

They help to access the right location with precision, hence reducing time on the operation table. The 3D guides help achieve right orientation, resulting in minimally invasive surgery thereby reducing recovery time. They are more stable as they are manufactured keeping in view the bone structure, available tissues around the site.

“3D printed patient specific surgical guides make surgeries more predictable, minimally invasive, reduce the operating time and enable speedy recovery of the patient,” says Dr Mahendranadh Reddy. With the advancement in medical imaging and additional softwares, surgical guides can now be prepared by the direct utilization of the CT data using 3D Printing, he adds.