Facial Prostheses

Treatment satisfaction with facial prostheses.

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM Facial defects secondary to the treatment of neoplasms, congenital malformations, and trauma result in multiple functional and psychosocial difficulties. Prosthetic rehabilitation attempts to restore these facial disfigurements and may improve the level of function and self-esteem for these patients. However, a limited number of studies have evaluated the change in perceive...

Implant-retained craniofacial prostheses for facial defects

Craniofacial prostheses, also known as epistheses, are artificial substitutes for facial defects. The breakthrough for rehabilitation of facial defects with implant-retained prostheses came with the development of the modern silicones and bone anchorage. Following the discovery of the osseointegration of titanium in the 1950s, dental implants have been made of titanium in the 1960s. In 1977, th...

Polyvinyl chloride (cordo) facial and body prostheses.

Colour quality of facial prostheses in additive manufacturing

Recent progress in additive manufacturing technology has improved the realistic colour reproduction of 3D facial prostheses with computational optimisation of skin colour profiles. The colour appearance of the prosthetic surface depends on both the spectral characteristics of the surfaces and the scene illumination. Considering everyday environments, the colours of prosthetic surfaces should ap...

Colour image reproduction for 3D printing of facial prostheses

In this chapter, using colour 3D printing technology, a 3D colour image reproduction system is detailed for the automated and accurate additive manufacturing of soft tissue facial prostheses. A protocol for 3D colour image reproduction was designed based on six steps of processing. For this specific application, protocols for each sub-process required development and details of each technique a...