Commentary on: Assessment of Robot-Assisted Mandibular Contouring Surgery in Comparison With Traditional Surgery: A Prospective, Single-Center, Randomized Controlled Trial

摘要

See the Original Article here. Mandibular contouring surgery has become a common practice for many plastic surgeons and related specialists, with increasing patient demand for this procedure each year in Asian countries. Because of unfavorable complications such as accidental fracture of mandible and inferior alveolar nerve injury that might occur during the operation, the accuracy and safety of mandibular osteotomy has become a hot topic of discussion. To improve the success rate of the operation and the overall aesthetic results, computed tomography–based virtual surgical planning (VSP) has been applied in mandibular contouring surgery. However, the conformity of the VSP to the postoperative result has always been a concern for plastic surgeons. In the article titled “Assessment of Robot-Assisted Mandibular Contouring Surgery in Comparison With Traditional Surgery: A Prospective, Single-Center, Randomized Controlled Trial,” 1 the authors—based on the experiences gained in traditional surgery—first presented their clinical studies on robot-assisted surgery (RAS) in mandibular contouring surgery. Their clinical experience was gleaned from 30 patients with an average age of 22.65 years (range, 18-30 years) over a 24-month period. They not only reported primary clinical outcomes of accuracy of osteotomy plane with objective measurements based on 3-dimensional (3D) imaging analysis, but also provided secondary clinical outcomes such as surgical pain scale, perioperative outcomes, and complications derived from the surgeon’s evaluation. Patient-reported outcomes predicated on Likert scales were also recorded. By comparison, the RAS described by the authors was clearly able to achieve noticeable improvements in terms of the safety and the efficacy of mandibular contouring surgery.