EXERCISES IN MICROSURGICAL DISSECTIONS ON ARTIFICIAL TEMPORAL BONE PREPARATIONS - THE PRODUCTIONS OF TEMPORAL BONE FACSIMILES WITH STEREOLITHOGRAPHIC SYSTEMS

Learning microsurgery of the middle ear requires preparations of tempo ral bones. Ethical and moral restrictions in obtaining specimens make training and research with temporal bone preparations increasingly mor e difficult. Due to the complex structure of the temporal bone with it s communicating cavities, the manufacture of facsimiles up to now has been impossible. Rapid prototyping techniques must be able to produce identical objects from an original one. By using CT scans of temporal bones from anatomic preparations and patients we have been able to rec onstruct 3D pictures on a CAD workstation. We are now able to incorpor ate data in a stereolithographic system to create an anatomic facsimil e of the temporal bone. It is possible to produce a considerable numbe r of these facsimiles from the same real object. With this method we c an produce models of human structure for medical teaching, training an d research. Our artificial preparations of temporal bones correspond t o both the material characteristics and anatomic details of human stru ctures,allowing various surgical exercises to be carried out.