Grant: Project Grant

Computer-aided planning is having a significant impact on the planning and delivery of surgically-based medical treatment. This is particularly true for surgical treatments associated with head and neck cancer. A common treatment for jaw tumours involves removing the diseased tissue and replacing it with a bone graft grown from the patient's lower leg. Using computer-aided planning, we, at the Institute for Reconstructive Sciences in Medicine (iRSM) in Edmonton, have turned the complex treatment procedure into a fully-guided one, and have reduced the total recovery time for this treatment from 2-4 years to 12 weeks, greatly improving the patient's experience. We will build on this success by using computer modeling to help plan the treatment associated with a different procedure: removing tumours found in the tongue, and replacing the missing tissue with skin/fat tissue grafts obtained from the forearm. One serious side effect of this procedure is that for a majority of patients, it impairs their ability to swallow, resulting in serious (and sometimes life-threatening) consequences. Our intention is to mitigate this problem by developing a framework for creating dynamic, 3D patient-specific computer models of the patient's full head and neck which can be used to help plan the procedure, predict the impact of a treatment on swallowing behavior, assess risk of complications, and allow the clinician to adjust the treatment plan as needed. Such a model will be created for each patient prior to treatment by "morphing" a standard template model of head and neck anatomy to match medical imaging data (such as MRI and CT). The model will also be used as the basis for constructing physical guides and moulds to help with the tissue removal and reconstruction, and as a medium to facilitate communication between the health care team and patient. Together, this new digital workflow will significantly improve both treatment outcomes and the patient's quality of life.