Development of Three-dimensional Deep Learning for Automatic Design of Skull Implants

Designing a personalized implant to restore the protective and aesthetic functions of the patient's skull is challenging. The skull defects may be caused by trauma, congenital malformation, infection, and iatrogenic treatments such as decompressive craniectomy, plastic surgery, and tumor resection. The project aims to develop a deep learning system with 3D shape reconstruction capabilities. The system will meet the requirement of designing high-resolution 3D implant numerical models efficiently.

A collection of skull images were used for training the deep learning system. Defective models in the datasets were created by numerically masking areas of intact 3D skull models. The final implant design should be verified by neurosurgeons using 3D printed models.