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Virtual implants, first round

Introduction

As planned I designed virtual implants in my nasal cavity in order to improve airflow distribution and decrease cross-sectional area to tend toward a healthy nose.

Virtual implants placement

Virtual implants

In red are the virtual implants that I designed, you can see that I added a lateral wall implant behind the existing one on the right side. It measures approximately 30 mm long, 10mm high, and 5mm thick.
On the other side, we can say that it is two implants, a floor, and a lateral wall implant.
The floor implant measures approximately 35 mm long, 6mm wide, and 3 mm thick.
And the lateral wall implant is 35 mm long, 10 mm high, and 2 mm thick.
So I don't know if it is even possible to add an implant behind the existing one but I think that it is a good idea to keep the cross-sectional area constant all along the right side.
On the left side, I added two implants which aim to reduce the space between the existing inferior turbinates and the walls.

Cross-sectional area change

We can see that the change starts at 40 mm from the nostrils until 70 mm. And now we reach a maximum of around 400 mm² instead of 500 mm², but it is still far from a healthy nose. So we can already say that the implants are not big enough. But my first goal was to try to have a better flow distribution and a constant cross-sectional area.

Results

Left side
Right side

We can quickly see that there is almost no change in the airflow distribution and velocity. There is maybe a bit more airflow in the inferior meatus but it is not a crazy change.

Before virtual implant

After virtual implant

Slices

In the slice view If we compare before and after virtual implants, we also do not see any significant difference in airflow velocity.

Before virtual implants
After virtual implant

I made a slice with the same distance from the nostrils of the two 3d models (before and after virtual implants). And I placed a dot to measure the velocity at the same location. After virtual surgery, the velocity is around twice higher 0,26 m/s instead of 0,14 m/s in the post-virtual surgery 3d model. But it is just a little area, we can see the color change and it is twice higher yes but 0,26 m/s is still a very low velocity to the 2 m/s in green for instance. So I speculate that this change is almost not perceptible in terms of airflow feeling.

Conclusion and next step

So what I can say with those data is these virtual implants have almost changed nothing in the velocity and the airflow distribution. It's possible that if these implants were done in reality I would feel almost no improvements. But one thing, ENS symptoms are not just due to airflow problems, there is also the health of the mucosa, the nasal cycle which is almost dead with cutted turbinates and maybe others things to take into account.

What is the next step?

Find better implants placement, also maybe bigger implants to decrease cross-sectional area … I don't know.
Recreate true turbinates… Ok it is not possible in reality.

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