Use of Ultrasonic New Shape Blade in Orthognathic Surgery : Review of 138 Patients

Piezoelectric bone surgery is a relatively new technique of bone surgery that is recently gaining popularity in oral and maxillofacial surgery. Vercellotti was introduced an angled piezoelectric blade which presented benefits for bone cutting during oral surgery. Then a number of Vercellotti type devices have been launched on the market in the world and are often referred to as piezoelectric, piezosurgical or piezotome systems. But piezoelectric osteotomies have been limited in the field of orthognathics surgery due to unfavorable tip angulations and insufficient cutting power for maxilla and mandibular bone. We developed the special angled piezoelectric blades that we have hence modified a shape and frequency of the instrument, become a more powerful ultrasonic device (Surgery Falcon|TM, OSADA electric Co. Ltd, Tokyo, Japan). This piezoelectric surgery device produces specific ultrasound frequency modulation (28,000-32,000 Hz). We applied an ultrasonic bone device to perform safe osteotomy in orthognathic surgery. One hundred thirty eight patients with dentofacial deformities underwent orthognathic surgery ; Le Fort I osteotomy, sagittal split ramus osteotomy, genioplasty and corticotomy, using ultrasonic bone device to cut or remove bone. In all cases, the osseous cutting is more precise and the surgeries could be safely performed without injuries to the soft tissue. Especially, the absence of bleeding facilitates osteotomy of the anterior-posterior wall of the maxilla and the pterygomaxilla junction.