Objective To study digitize design of custom-made radial head prosthesis and to verify its matching precision by the surgery of preoperative three-dimensional (3-D) virtual replacement. Methods Six healthy adult volunteers (3 males and 3 females, aged 25-55 years with an average of 33 years) received slice scan of bilateral elbow by Speed Light 16-slice spiral CT. The CT Dicom data were imported into Mimics 10.0 software individually for 3-D reconstruction image, and the left proximal radial 3-D image was extracted, the mirror of the image was generated and it was split into 2 pieces: the head and the neck. The internal diameter and the length of the radial neck were obtained by Mimics 10.0 software measurement tools. In Geomagic Studio 12 software, the radial head was simulated to cover the cartilage surface (1 mm thickness) and generated to an entity. In UG NX 8.0 software, the stem of prosthesis was designed according to the parameters above and assembled head entity. Each custom-made prosthesis was performed and verified its matching precision by the surgery of preoperative 3-D virtual replacement. Results Comparing the morphology of 6 digitize custom-made prostheses with ipsilateral radial heads by the 3-D virtual surgery, the error was less than 1 mm. The radial head prosthesis design on basis of the contralateral anatomy was verified excellent matching. Conclusion The 3-D virtual surgery test and the digitized custom-made radial head prosthesis will be available for clinical accurate replacement.