An Image-Guided Navigation System for Mandibular Angle Surgery

In this paper, a computer-aided surgical 3D planning and real-time navigation system (Navi-CMFS) was developed to improve the accuracy and reliability of the mandibular angle restoration. This system integrates 3D medical modeling, 3D pre-operative surgical planning and intra-operative real-time navigation, which enabling the surgeon to locate the continually updated position of the instruments and the patient in the operating room, avoiding to hurt the inferior alveolar nerves, minimizing surgical risks and optimizing clinical results. Clinical studies were conducted on four patients with mandibular angles malformation. The average distance deviations between the planning and post-operation model (system precision) were 1.725mm. The results show that this system provided a more accurate and effective method than conventional surgery in mandibular angle surgery.