Background: Recently, the mandibular body and chin shape are known to be important issue as well as the mandibular angle. The authors have performed the one-piece mandibuloplasty from the mandibular angle to the most anterior part of chin to achieve the change of the whole mandibular shape as a one-piece.
Methods: All of 14 patients who complaint prominent mandibular angle and chin were randomly allocated into 2 groups. Group I (n = 7) was treated with conventional mandibuloplasty with narrowing genioplasty and Group II (n = 7) was treated with one-piece mandibuloplasty. Pre- and postoperative clinical photography, cephalometry, computed tomography scan, 3-dimensional photography were taken and occurrence of secondary angle, patient's satisfaction, and operative time were evaluated.
Results: The mean volume reduction per side was 41.8 cc on one-piece mandibuloplasty and 36.5 cc on conventional mandibuloplasty with narrowing genioplasty. Furthermore, average lower facial decreased from 64.3 to 61.0 after 6 months postoperatively and was maintained until 3 years on average after the operation. In one-piece mandibuloplasty group shows a little higher satisfaction about mandible body, and it was estimated that the presence of secondary angle makes dissatisfaction. The authors' treatment approach resulted in a shorter total surgery time than conventional technique (70.57 versus 105.14 min, P = 0.002).
Conclusions: One-piece mandibuloplasty based on 3-dimensional printing model turned out to be very successful for the natural shaping of the lower jaw in the patients with the prominent mandible in terms of the technical efficiency and the aesthetic point of view.