Medical Skull Repair: PEEK Implantation Brings New Hope

Skull defects are a common condition that can lead to damage to the skull for many reasons. For example, falling objects, traffic accidents, surgery, etc., the emergence of 3D printed PEEK materials has brought new hope to patients.

Medical Skull Repair: PEEK Implantation Brings New Hope

Significant progress has been made in the medical field in skull repair, and the successful implementation of PEEK material implantation in the skull has brought new hope to many patients who are troubled by skull defects.

In the early stage of prosthesis implantation, skull repair surgery mostly uses traditional materials, such as metal patches, such as titanium alloy, stainless steel, etc., but these materials have certain limitations, such as postoperative rejection, insufficient compressive strength or poor shaping effect. The advent of PEEK material has largely made up for these shortcomings. It has excellent biocompatibility, which greatly reduces the risk of rejection of the human immune system, allowing patients to recover more smoothly after surgery. At the same time, PEEK material has excellent mechanical properties, and its elastic modulus is close to that of human bones, which can better adapt to the physiological activities of the skull and provide a reliable protective barrier for the brain.

During the procedure, a dedicated medical team uses advanced imaging technology to accurately model the patient's skull defect in 3D to create a PEEK implant that fits perfectly to the patient's skull. This personalized treatment plan ensures the accuracy and safety of the procedure, which not only shortens the operation time, but also significantly improves the repair outcome.

Patients who underwent PEEK skull implant surgery and showed good healing during postoperative recovery. The patient's headache, dizziness and other uncomfortable symptoms caused by skull defects have been significantly alleviated, and the quality of life has been greatly improved. Many patients are able to return to their normal lives and work more quickly and regain confidence in life.

Skull defects are a common condition that can lead to damage to the skull for many reasons. For example, falling objects, traffic accidents, surgery, etc., can lead to skull defects. After the defect occurs, the skull must be repaired. Skull defect will not only affect the appearance of the skull, resulting in easy damage to the head tissue, but also the instability of intracranial pressure, which may also interfere with various life activities in the skull, which may be manifested as headache and dizziness. It may also cause difficulty concentrating and memory loss.

The chemical structure properties of PEEK give it excellent mechanical properties, good biocompatibility, chemical resistance, easy processing and reproducible sterilization, which has attracted more and more attention from material science researchers and orthopedic science researchers, and is expected to replace metal materials in the field of hard tissue repair and replacement. With the deepening of 3D printing applications, PEEK has gained more attention. PEEK implantation in the skull has the following advantages over metal implants:

1. Biocompatibility, biocompatibility is the most basic requirement for whether a material is suitable for human implantation, and it must be non-cytotoxic, mutagenic, carcinogenic and not cause allergies.

2. The elastic modulus similar to that of human bones, compared with metal, the elastic modulus of medical implantable grade PEEK is lower and similar to that of bones, which effectively alleviates the stress masking effect and maintains the strength of the surrounding bones.

3. X-ray see-through, medical implant-grade PEEK can transmit X-rays, providing good postoperative visibility.

4. Excellent disinfection performance, can be used in pressurized hot water or steam at 300°C, and can withstand up to 3000 cycles of autoclaving at 134°C.

Therefore, it is important to perform skull repair in a timely manner after the occurrence of a skull defect. Moreover, it is necessary to choose a good repair material to achieve the ideal repair effect. TOPYOUTH3D cooperated with a number of international hospitals to use PEEK material to make PEEK skull patches through 3D printing technology, and the repair effect has been proved to be very good after a large number of surgical cases. PEEK implanted in the skull has good biocompatibility, can be complex shaping, excellent mechanical properties, good protective performance, and high postoperative comfort, and has gradually become a new trend of cranial repair materials.