A virtual reality atlas of craniofacial anatomy.

BACKGROUND: Head and neck anatomy is complex and represents an educational challenge to the student. Conventional two-dimensional illustrations inherently fall short in conveying intricate anatomical relationships that exist in three dimensions. A gratis three-dimensional virtual reality atlas of craniofacial anatomy is presented in an effort to address the paucity of readily accessible and customizable three-dimensional educational material available to the student of head and neck anatomy. METHODS: Three-dimensional model construction was performed in Alias Maya 4.5 and 6.0. A basic three-dimensional skull model was altered to include surgical landmarks and proportions. Some of the soft tissues were adapted from previous work, whereas others were constructed de novo. Texturing was completed with Adobe Photoshop 7.0 and Maya. The Internet application was designed in Viewpoint Enliven 1.0. RESULTS: A three-dimensional computer model of craniofacial anatomy (bone and soft tissue) was completed. The model is compatible with many software packages and can be accessed by means of the Internet or downloaded to a personal computer. As the three-dimensional meshes are publicly available, they can be extensively manipulated by the user, even at the polygonal level. CONCLUSIONS: Three-dimensional computer graphics has yet to be fully exploited for head and neck anatomy education. In this context, the authors present a publicly available computer model of craniofacial anatomy. This model may also find applications beyond clinical medicine. The model can be accessed gratis at the Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Web site or obtained as a three-dimensional mesh, also gratis, by contacting the authors.

Morphology and growth of the mandible in Crouzon, Apert, and Pfeiffer syndromes.

The purpose of this study was to examine mandibular morphology and growth in patients with Crouzon, Pfeiffer, and Apert syndromes using posteroanterior cephalograms. Fifteen patients with Apert (n = 2), Crouzon (n = 11), and Pfeiffer (n = 2) (11 female, 4 male) syndrome were included in this study. All patients had serial posteroanterior cephalograms at 5, 10, and 15 years of age. The bicondylar width, bigonial width, bicondylar/bigonial ratio, and ramus to intercondylar plane angle for each patient were measured on the cephalograms and compared with age-match controls. An analysis of variance analysis was carried out to detect differences between patients and controls and sex differences between patients. In both male and female patients, there was a statistically significant reduction in bicondylar width compared with age-matched controls. Male patients also had a statistically significant increase in bigonial width compared with controls and female patients at 10 and 15 years. The resulting bicondylar/bigonial ratios were significantly reduced, and the ramus to intercondylar plane angles were significantly increased in both male and female patients compared with controls. Unlike previous reports of patients with syndromic synostosis, this study demonstrates that the mandible has significant morphologic and growth abnormalities, including constriction of bicondylar width with near normal bigonial width in female patients. These findings suggest a narrowing at the cranial base with resulting restriction of normal transverse mandibular growth at the condyle. The secondary nature of the mandibular finding is suggested by the near normal or increased transverse growth at the gonion in females and males, respectively. Consequently, the ramus appears torqued inward, forming a greater angle with the cranial base.