Document Type : Reseach Article

Authors

• Toktam Jafarpour
• Farouk Smith

Department of Mechatronics Engineering, Nelson Mandela University, Port Elizabeth, South Africa

Abstract

In different medical applications, physical stimulation techniques are used to assist the treatment and improve the treatment conditions from different perspectives. They can accelerate the healing process and stimulate biological processes and healing mechanisms. In oral and maxillofacial reconstruction, one of the widely used physical stimulation techniques is Low-Level Laser Therapy (LLLT). LLLT is a photonic stimulation technique that accelerate the biological processes of the cells and healing mechanisms. In LLLT, light photons are used to physically impact the healing zone. Distraction Osteogenesis (DO) is a novel reconstruction technique that is used for tissue regeneration in different body zones. By using DO, acquired and congenital bone defects can be reconstructed. Recent experimental studies show that in a DO treatment, the application of LLLT during bone regeneration process can significantly improve the outcome of the treatment and enhance the quality of the regenerated bone tissue. In this research a LLLT device is proposed to be used during DO in maxillofacial reconstruction applications. The results of this study show that the proposed device can generate single- and multi-wavelength laser lights with controlled parameters. The proposed system can be used during the DO treatment to shorten the treatment time and improve the quality of the outcome and treatment conditions.

Keywords

• Maxillofacial Reconstruction, Photonic Stimulation, Medical Device, Physical simulation
• Distraction Osteogenesis