Researchers at RMIT University have collaborated with a medical device company and a neurosurgeon to successfully deliver a 3D printed vertebral cage to a patient with severe back pain.
For a couple of years, spine surgery specialist Dr Marc Coughlan, at the North Gosford and Prince of Wales Hospitals, had been repairing fractured skulls with plastic implants made by a Melbourne company which used 3D printers to mould the implants to the exact contours of a patient’s skull. More recently the same company, Anatomics, had started designing metal implants using a 3D printer that fires lasers into layers of powdered titanium.
If Anatomics could custom-build an implant to fit snugly into Gorvin’s damaged vertebra, Coughlan explained, it might straighten her spine and alleviate her pain. The technology was so new that few surgeons in the world had attempted the procedure, and therein lay the rub: Coughlan would be the first Australian surgeon to attempt it, and Amanda Gorvin the first patient in the country to agree to it.
When an abnormal structure of the fifth lumbar vertebra and severe degeneration of the adjacent disc was causing Gorvin constant lower back pain, she was referred to spine surgery specialist Dr Marc Coughlan.
Coughlan’s opinion was that spinal surgery was an option, however due to the unusual shape of Gorvin’s vertebra a standard, off-the-shelf implant would probably only give slight relief.
“This revolutionary process allows the implant to be built layer by layer, adding successive layers of material under computer control – as opposed to the subtractive manufacturing techniques of casting, fabrication, stamping and machining”.
“An advantage of 3D printing is that a custom implant can be made of any shape and complex internal architecture for a reasonable cost.”
Specialist teams at Anatomics and RMIT used a CT scan of Gorvin’s spine to create the customized implant while a second medical device supplier, LifeHealthcare, provided additional parts.
It has been three months since the surgery and Gorvin has resumed normal activities without any significant pain.
3D printing is proving to be a game changer for manufacturing in the aviation, aerospace, automotive and healthcare industries.
The ability to create unique and complex titanium implants for specific conditions, such as the abnormal shape of Gorvin’s vertebral cage, indicates that additive technology could be used to provide ongoing support for patients with chronic pain.
In March 2011, surgeon Anthony Atala stood onstage at a TED Conference in California and wowed a crowd of several thousand by seemingly printing a human kidney right before their eyes.
Few years back, a professor is working on a technology named as Contour Crafting which can 3d print an entire 2,500 sqft house in 20 hours.
A Dutch architect had worked on creating a two-story “Landscape House” which is built entirely from a 3D printer. He constructs the building using D-Shape, a 3D printer.
From Texas, a plastic 3D-printed pistol called the Liberator, which Australian police have test-fired and deemed to be potentially lethal – albeit not just to its target.
About Anatomics:
Anatomics is a Melbourne-based and Australian-owned medical device company that has been manufacturing and marketing surgical products to surgeons locally and internationally since 1996. Anatomics pioneered CT scan derived surgical implant technology and was first to market with an innovative, quality product that assisted surgeons to produce better surgical outcomes and save valuable operating theatre time.
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