Recovery rates for American soldiers with head wounds are improving significantly because of new technology to quickly produce custom cranial implants that are more resistant to infection. More than 70 cranial plates have been produced using the new process at Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC) in Washington, D.C., with an average surgical time of 90 minutes from first incision to completion of suturing. Previously, the same types of surgeries took from two hours to more than six hours. “The time savings can be directly attributed to the improved implant design and attached fixation,” says Stephen L. Rouse, DDS, a government contractor working in the 3-D Medical Applications Lab at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. “Large implants were previously multi-piece constructs, and were slower to place and fixate.”
