Computer assisted surgery: the use of digital images in enabling computerized design and manufacture of titanium implants

Computer assisted surgery often involves the use of medical images prior to surgery for the design of surgical implants such as titanium implants for facial and cranial reconstruction.The accurate design of these implants to produce a good functional and aesthetic result was very difficult, and the surgical insertion protracted by the need to make considerable adjustments to the implant at surgery for it to conform to the patient's anatomy.The advent of digital imaging in the form of CT, and the increasing accessibility of the digital data has led to the development of computer based systems for implant design.Computer assisted surgery has been extended into the use of such images as part of the surgical procedure, for example in the form of image guided surgery.