Guided tongue reconstruction: Feasibility analysis of additively manufactured surgical toolkit on a silicone tongue model

This benchtop study demonstrates that a patient-specific, guided surgical toolkit can feasibly and reliably translate tongue VSP into accurate reconstructions on soft-tissue phantoms. By introducing a volume feedback mechanism and decoupling the flap's planar shape from its volume, the system provides adaptive guidance that is both geometry- and volume-aware. These findings support progression to cadaveric studies and early clinical validation to evaluate overbulking strategies, intraoperative adaptability, and correlation with functional outcomes.