Dr. Ralph Mobbs, a Neurosurgeon at the Neuro Spine
Clinic at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Australia, was able to preform the
first-ever spinal transplant using 3-D printed titanium vertebra in the
transplant during a 15-hour long surgery. His 60 year-old patient
suffered from a severe form of cancer known as Chordoma that resided in two
tumors that inhabited the two vertebrae that are involved with rotation of the
head. Since the tumors are located so high up on the spine, if left untreated,
the tumors would eventually grow to compress the brain stem and spinal chord,
which would cause quadriplegia. Due to the high risk that comes with the
surgery to remove these tumors means it often goes un-treated, until now…
Normally in this surgery doctors would try to reconstruct the vertebrae using
bone from another place in the body, but according to Dr. Mobbs it can be very
difficult to get a good fit; hence why the surgery is not a popular one.
Dr. Mobbs says 3D printing allows him and many
other doctors to customize body parts for specific patients, allowing them to
achieve that perfect fit that’s crucial for success. To make the vertebrae
implants for this patient, Dr. Mobbs worked with an Australian medical device
company named Anatomics. Along with the vertebrae implants, the company also
printed the doctor a bunch of models of the patient's exact anatomy so he was
able to practice the surgery a few times before walking into the operating room,
lowering the risks of this high risk surgery even more than one thought was
possible, an amazing accomplishment in the medical field!
In this article Dr, Mobbs said, "There's no
doubt this is the next big wave of medicine. For me, the holy grail of medicine
is the manufacturing of bones, joints and organs on-demand to restore function
and save lives." For Mobbs next step forward in this medical advancement,
he wants to be able to harvest and use cells from the patient’s body onto a 3D
scaffold in order to grow fully customized implants, instead of using titanium
implants! This technique could be increasingly useful for organ transplants and
the like- eliminating the waiting game that comes with needing an organ
transplant.
Source:
http://mashable.com/2016/02/25/3d-printed-vertebrae-spine/#9XTukUxwAkqj
-Kelsey Morrison (2)
I wrote a blog post about the possible reality of successful human head transplantation. Such a procedure would be one of the most complicated in history and would require massive amounts of resources. This blog post made me wonder how extensively, if at all, 3D-printing would be used in such a highly experimental operation. This article in particular has convinced me that 3D-printing could help solve many problems faced with experimental treatments like head transplants. Seemingly far-fetched medical procedures might not be as crazy as you once thought, thanks to new technologies like 3D-printing.
ReplyDeleteBradley Sarasin (Group 3)
I remember reading your post! Its crazy to think about how much 3D printing can help advance our doctors skills and also raise the success rates of these high risk surgeries.
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