Design and manufacture of a customised temporomandibular prosthesis

In this work, design, manufacture and surgical success of a personalised temporomandibular prosthesis is featured. A fused deposition modelling technique and Die forging process constitute the methodology used in a patient who had an amputation in the upper third branch of the mandible, without considering the joint capsule. The implant was designed using a processed resection image of a computational tomography and using the methodology of Özkaya and Nordin. The jaw operating conditions were simulated by the finite element method (FEM). The main considered factors were the morphological geometry of the patient, implant fixation in the first third of the branch, implant fixation on the chin, dental post for placement of the teeth, and the form of the sub-lingual fossa weight optimisation. Special consideration was to preserve the patients facial aesthetics.