Limitations of Using Generative Design for Maxillo-Facial Reconstructive Surgery Applications

Generative Design (GD) is an emerging approach to the development of industrial products. Its key-point is the automatism in defining the shapes of artifacts by obeying to parameters describing the environment the artifacts will interact with, their mechanical properties, their materials and the manufacturing processes that will be used to build them. This paper describes some GD experiences in medicine, aimed at developing artifacts for maxillo-facial surgery. Once highlighted a real surgical case, designers, engineers and surgeons worked together to set the parameters to enable GD generating the artifact to replace a part of a patient’s jaw hit by a genetic disease. Three adoptions of the GD algorithms occurred, along with parameter refinement and integration time after time. Designers, engineers and surgeons reasoned together on the solutions; this led to considerations about the suitability of GD in maxillo-facial surgery and about the current limits of this approach, as well as to some hints for carrying on the research activities in the near future.