ABSTRACT
The use of surgical plates is recognized as the standard treatment for fracture surgery. Mandibular condyle fractures are common enough to account for 35% of all mandibular fractures. Mandibular condyle fracture osteosynthesis has large restrictions on the positions of screws and plates owing to anatomical characteristics. In addition, mastication causes various severe loading conditions on the defected mandible part. In a previous study [1], a surgical plate was manually designed based on the physiological structure of the mandible to improve stability. In this study, we propose to utilize a topology optimization method for the optimal design of bone plates to ensure a high level of safety for osteosynthesis with complex physiological constraints. We compare the stability of the optimally designed plate, a conventional bent plate, and a conventional CNC-machined plate using finite element analysis. A masticatory simulation of a mandibular condyle fracture case is performed to illustrate the improved stability of the optimally designed plate.
