May 30 2008
2004年，在巴格达街道上拖动残疾车辆时，军队Staff Sgt. Terry Saffron's HUMVEE was struck by an improvised explosive device. When he came to, he had an injured arm and a shattered jaw.
For years he suffered debilitating jaw pain and was unable to chew. Army doctors worked to repair it but they were unable to get blood flow to the jaw to keep the bone alive.
Sergeant Saffron was referred to Wilford Hall Medical Center here and Maj. (Dr.) Cecelia Schmalbach, chief of head and neck microvascular surgery, for the next steps in his rehabilitation.
One of Dr. Schmalbach's first steps in repairing Sergeant Saffron's jaw was to have a model created of how his jaw should look. She turned to Wilford Hall's stereolithography lab for this.
自1996年以来，实验室工作人员帮助医生护理了受创伤，癌症和先天异常毁容的患者。
The lab's technicians first used images from CT scans to create a 3-D graphic. They then used 3-D sculpting tools and advanced modeling techniques to produce a mirror image the patient's mandible and created a corrected anatomical jaw. A computer-guided laser used the graphic to create an epoxy photopolymer resin model of how his jaw should look.
施马尔巴赫博士说：“我能够弯曲一个与他的旧骨头完全匹配的钛板。”“我能够拿着模特并看一部电影，然后看中士藏红花，并尝试将缺少的东西拼凑在一起，以更好地预测我的手术所需的东西。”
在立体光刻实验室技术人员创建的模型的帮助下，施马尔巴赫博士能够成功地使用中士藏藏人的腿的骨，动脉和静脉来修复他的下巴。他仍然有一种康复之路的方法，但他能够再次吃饭，吞咽和聊天。
"There is no question in my mind that I could not have achieved the quality of reconstruction and returning this patient to normal occlusion without the aid of the stereolithography models," said Dr. Schmalbach.