Abstract
A maxillofacial prosthesis is one useful method to restore defects after orbital exenteration. A conventional orbital epithesis would satisfy cosmetic requirements if there were no movement, such as facial expression. However, the orbital region has many kinds of movement, and there is no prosthesis that can mimic such movement, expect for a few experimental ones.
Unnatural facial expressions that are not linked with the normal side adversely affect the patient's social rehabilitation.
We developed a “Blinking-eyelid orbital epithesis” by adding blinking movement to a conventional epithesis, as the first step to overcome this problem. With conventional methods for epithesis support, it was impossible to support a blinking-eyelid orbital epithesis because the weight of the epithesis increased when the blinking function was added. However, we solved this problem by using osseointegrated implants to support the epithesis.
