Can I See What The Implant Designs I Have Made Look Like On My Face?

Q: Dr. Eppley, I was thinking of having a facial augmentation, which would include the zygomas and the chin. I tried to make some implants to get an idea of what the result might look like. What does the doctor think of the ones I made. Could the design and thickness be like this.

The goal is to have more projection and width of the lower midface;  I would like to know if the doctor could digitally place the implants I have designed onto my skeletal scan/model.

Or better I have already made a physical project of the implants on a skeletal model. What I need now is for this project to be transferred into a digital format, like a 3D simulation, so it can be used for further development of the implants.

So that I can see the project in a professional and more clear way.

A:What your pictures demonstrate is how I used to make custom facial implants prior to 2010. Back then I made the implant design using plaster or wax on the patient’s 3-D skeletal model. Since 2010 this method has become obsolete since I now design implants by computer design on their 3-D CT scan.

But regardless of the method used to obtain any implant design there is no method to determine exactly what the external facial effect will be… which I believe is what you’re asking. That is as of yet an impossibility with any accuracy. Whether it is the old method or the new method custom facial implant designing is done to make the best guess of what the result may be. The basis for any implant design should be morphed pictures of the patients before and after desired result… at least then the implants are designed based on a specific target. What it appears you have done is make an implant design and ask what aesthetic effect it would have. Besides being an impossible question to answer, as I have already stated, this approach is doing it backwards. The implant design should be based on a known target which is the patients morphed desired outcome.

Dr. Barry Eppley

World-Renowned Plastic Surgeon