Open-Source, Customizable, 3D-Printed Ocular Prosthetics As a Viable Alternative to Traditional Ocular Prosthetics

Problem

An estimated 55 million eye injuries occur annually worldwide. Of these injuries, 750,000 require hospitalization and 200,000 are open globe injuries¹. In addition, disfiguring eye injuries cause significant psychosocial distress².  For enucleation, phthisis bulbi, or even disfigured blind eyes, ocular prosthetics not only serve an extremely valuable cosmetic purpose, but also help maintain the anatomic integrity of the orbit. Current ocular prosthetics are costly and are time consuming to produce with an average cost ranging from $1500-8000 and production time between 4-6 weeks.

Purpose

To develop a 3D-printed prosthetic eye that is customizable, inexpensive, and available to anyone with access to the internet and a 3D-printer.  

Materials & Method

Using open-source CAD modeling software, we developed a customizable prosthetic eye model.  The eye can be customized within the following parameters, shape, height, length, width, thickness, concavity, iris diameter, and pupil diameter.  The customization process is user friendly, requiring numeric inputs or parametric adjustments.  The final model is exported and processed by an open-source slicing software.  Using a commercially available and inexpensive dual extruder 3D-printer, the eye is printed with commonly available acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) plastic.  A simple post processing procedure is outlined in order to improve aesthetics.  The final model is then cast into resin.

Results

The production of our 3D printed prosthetic eye is significantly faster than traditional methods, requiring a total of 85 minutes to complete.  The process requires less than 10 minutes to customize, 30 minutes to print, and 45 minutes for post processing.  Given access to the internet and a 3D printer, the raw cost of producing a prosthetic eye is $0.32.  Due to the automation of much of the process, the cost of labor is greatly reduced.

Conclusion

With the increasing popularity of 3D printers, many of which are becoming publicly available (i.e. schools/public libraries), the production of a customizable prosthetic eye will be a viable, less costly, and more accessible option in the near future.