Benefits of Patient-Specific Reconstruction Plates in Mandibular Reconstruction Surgical Simulation and Resident Education

Poorly contoured mandibular reconstruction plates are associated with postoperative complications. Recently, a technique emerged whereby preoperative patient-specific reconstructive plates (PSRP) are developed in the hopes of eliminating errors in the plate-bending process. This study's objective is to determine if reconstructions performed with PSRP are more accurate than manually contoured plates. Ten Otolaryngology residents each performed two ex vivo mandibular reconstructions, first using a PSRP followed by a manually contoured plate. Reconstruction time, CT scans, and accuracy measurements were collected. Paired Student's t-test was performed. There was a significant difference between reconstructions with PSRP and manually contoured plates in: plate-mandible distance (0.39 +/- 0.21 vs. 0.75 +/- 0.31 mm, p = 0.0128), inter-fibular segment gap (0.90 +/- 0.32 vs. 2.24 +/- 1.03 mm, p = 0.0095), mandible-fibula gap (1.02 +/- 0.39 vs. 2.87 +/- 2.38 mm, p = 0.0260), average reconstruction deviation (1.11 +/- 0.32 vs. 1.67 +/- 0.47 mm, p = 0.0228), mandibular angle width difference (5.13 +/- 4.32 vs. 11.79 +/- 4.27 mm, p = 0.0221), and reconstruction time (16.67 +/- 4.18 vs. 33.78 +/- 8.45 min, p = 0.0006). Lower plate-mandible distance has been demonstrated to correlate with decreased plate extrusion rates. Similarly, improved bony apposition promotes bony union. PSRP appears to provide a more accurate scaffold to guide the surgeons in assembling donor bone segments, which could potentially improve patient outcome and reduce surgical time. Additionally, in-house PSRP can serve as a low-cost surgical simulation tool for resident education.