Medknow Publications on behalf of Indian Journal of Plastic Surgery
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to describe the technique of making casts
using alginate compound for negative and dental stone plaster for
positive impressions. With certain modifications a cast could be made
of any part of the body and one can make a museum of interesting cases.
Casts serve as useful teaching material especially in cleft lip and
palate patients to study the effect of surgery on growth and
development of the cleft lip-palate-nose complex in relation to the
remaining face. It also helps in planning reconstruction in cases of
facial defects, recording serial changes in multistage surgery,
pre-operative and post-operative comparison as in rhinoplasty, ear
reconstruction, hand etc; for comparing results before and after
treatment in keloid and hypertrophic scars, fabrication of implants and
preparation of prosthesis. In spite of newer modalities like 3-D
imaging and stereolithography, the usefulness of this old technique in
certain interesting cases can not be denied
