Occlusion Guided Double-Barreled Fibular Osteoseptocutaneous Free Flap for Refined Mandibular Reconstruction Aided by Virtual Surgical Planning.

BACKGROUND: There were many articles about double-barreled fibular flap for mandibular reconstruction. The upper layer bone was suit for implant placement as a new alveolar. The lower layer was necessary for contour. But the accurate relationship between the 2 layers bone was rarely reported.

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was twofold: to evaluate the feasibility of the novel design of the double-barreled fibular flap from virtual surgery to actual result; to evaluate the accuracy and results of occlusion-guided double-barreled fibular free flap in mandible reconstruction.

METHODS: From 2010 to 2016, 52 patients underwent segmental mandibular reconstruction with double-barreled fibular osteoseptocutaneous flaps with computer aided design/computer aided manufacturing technique. Preoperative computer tomographic (CT) scans were imported into Mimics 10.01 software (Materialise, Leuven, Belgium) for surgical planning. The peroneal vessel pedicel was designed at the lower barrel segmental bone of the double-barreled fibular flap. The double-barreled bone was strung with 16 mm fixation screws instead of mini-plate. Sixty-three dental implants placement was simultaneous in 30 patients and 32 dental implants placement was in second stage in 18 patients. Postoperative CT and digital imaging were evaluated to assess surgical accuracy using software. The pre- and postoperative morphometric measurements were compared using the Fisher exact t test.

RESULTS: Two flaps occurred vascular crisis postoperatively. There was no flap necrosis. Four implants failed during 1 to 5 weeks postoperative. Sixty-six CT scans from 33 patients who underwent partial mandibular resection were analyzed. The dimensions of the double-barreled fibula segments after osteotomy showed no difference from the preoperative virtual surgical planning (VSP). But the condylar locations showed a disposition out of the fossa (P < 0.05), between VSP and postoperative CT scans. There was no difference in implants between VSP and postoperative CT scans.

CONCLUSIONS: The VSP of relationship of double-barreled fibular is important for segmental mandible reconstruction. The benefit of VSP was to enhance surgical accuracy and safety.