DigBody®: A new 3D modeling tool for nasal virtual surgery.
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Recent studies have demonstrated that a significant number of surgical procedures for nasal airway obstruction (NAO) have a high rate of surgical failure. In part, this problem is due to the lack of reliable objective clinical parameters to aid surgeons during preoperative planning. Modeling tools that allow virtual surgery to be performed do exist, but all require direct manipulation of computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data. Specialists in Rhinology have criticized these tools for their complex user interface, and have requested more intuitive, user-friendly and powerful software to make virtual surgery more accessible and realistic. In this paper we present a new virtual surgery software tool, DigBody®.


METHODS
This new surgery module is integrated into the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) program MeComLand®, which was developed exclusively to analyze nasal airflow. DigBody® works directly with a 3D nasal model that mimics real surgery. Furthermore, this surgery module permits direct assessment of the operated cavity following virtual surgery by CFD simulation.


RESULTS
The effectiveness of DigBody® has been demonstrated by real surgery on two patients based on prior virtual operation results. Both subjects experienced excellent surgical outcomes with no residual nasal obstruction.


CONCLUSIONS
This tool has great potential to aid surgeons in modeling potential surgical maneuvers, minimizing complications, and being confident that patients will receive optimal postoperative outcomes, validated by personalized CFD testing.
['Burgos|M A|MA|', 'Sanmiguel-Rojas|E|E|', 'Singh|Narinder|N|', 'Esteban-Ortega|F|F|']
D000328:Adult D003198:Computer Simulation D005260:Female D006801:Humans D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional D008297:Male D008953:Models, Anatomic D009296:Nasal Cavity D012984:Software D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed D014584:User-Computer Interface
Computational fluid dynamics Nasal airflow Virtual nasal surgery