Abstract
Background: It is important to correct the ocular disfigurement by wearing prostheses as soon as possible after healing from the eye enucleation surgery. This study aimed to develop a new computer-aided approach to fabricate custom ocular prostheses (COPs) with higher accuracy and efficiency and to fit different anophthalmia sockets. Results: Five patients underwent enucleation surgery from November 2018 to October 2020 were enrolled in the study. The semi-automatic design and fabrication workflow of COPs was based on the conjunctival sac impression, combined with Computer-aided design/Computer-aided manufacture (CAD/CAM) workflow, which involves computer image analysis, reverse engineering (RE), and 3-dimensional (3D) printing technologies. The height of palpebral fissure in the artificial eye group was 0.8000 ± 0.09529, N=5.The height of palpebral fissure in the healthy eye group was 0.7660 ± 0.1147, N=5, and there was no statistical difference between the two groups (p>0.05). The artificial eye in the conjunctival sac had a good effect on the reconstruction of orbital fullness. Both of the vertical activity and horizontal activity of COPs is smaller than that of healthy eyes (p<0.05).Conclusions: COPs made by RE and 3D printing technologies can effectively make the COPs suitable for patients' conjunctival sac. This workflow improved the accuracy of the COPs, and also reduced patients’ waiting time, which is worthy to be popularized and applied.