Dutch surgeons have just implanted a plastic skull printed with a 3D printer in a patient who suffered from a serious disease deforming her skull.
The medical use of the 3D printer has not finished talking about it. A team of Dutch surgeons from the University of Utrecht has indeed taken an important step in the development of this new technology. Thanks to a 3D printer, these doctors managed to create a plastic skull completely identical to that of a patient suffering from a serious illness and especially to implant it in the head of this young woman of 22 years. The authors of this unprecedented intervention preferred to wait 3 months before communicating in order to be completely certain of the positive evolution of their patient.
A serious illness that was compressing his brain
The young woman, the first patient in the world, now to be a carrier of a plastic cranial box created by 3D printing, was suffering from a rare pathology which led to a progressive thickening of her skull inward. Some time before the operation, the latter had in fact a thickness of 5 cm, whereas usually the thickness does not exceed 1.5 cm. As a result, her brain was starting to be compressed so much that the young woman suffered from very debilitating side effects: severe migraine, visual disturbances and even coordination problems. Without waiting for more damage, his doctors therefore offered him this daring intervention.
A 3D printed plastic skull similar to the original
The doctors first used the precise data of the patient’s skull collected by a scanner to create a 3D computer model of the latter. Then, thanks to the collaboration of an Australian company specializing in 3D printing, they managed to obtain a three-dimensional copy of this plastic skull. Finally, the high-risk intervention consisted in removing the entire diseased upper part of the young woman’s skull and replacing it with the copy. “The bone cement most commonly used for this type of operation is far from ideal,” explains the surgeon. 3D printing used in surgery makes it possible to manufacture custom implants ”. According to these doctors at the origin of this medical feat, today the patient is doing well and is gradually recovering her brain functions damaged by her disease. According to them, the medical and aesthetic benefits are very important and this technology should allow in the future to also operate on patients suffering from bone cancer or head trauma.
Video explaining this intervention on the website ofUtrecht University :
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