April 13, 2013
Hip replacements have been around for a long time. It is typically done in people with joint damage from arthritis or injuries who have not responded to other treatments. Hip replacement surgery entails removing bone and cartilage in your hip joint and replacing it with an artificial joint (prosthesis).
But what about those who have complicated cases or unusual deformities that a standard replacement wouldn't work? In the case below a young lady Brooke Hayes has suffered severe hip pain for several years but the surgery to fix her hips would be too complicated. In the past this meant few options.
Now, doctors at Mayo Clinic are using 3D printers to enable customized joint replacement surgeries. Doctors send 3D file of the patient's CT scan to a 3D printer which will then print out a 3D model of patient's hip joint.
Based on this 3D model doctors could make a plan for the surgery procedure first to increase the accuracy during the real procedure. Then they send the 3D model to patients' joint manufacturer to make a customized implant. The implants used in hip replacement are biocompatible and made to resist corrosion, degradation and wear.
Followed by rehabilitation, hip replacement can relieve pain and restore range of motion and function of hip joint.
Many patients like Brooke Hayes can now have a successful surgery and better quality of life. "I just couldn't wait to heal up so I could go to do things that I have been wanting to do for the last several years." says Brooke Hayes.
Posted in 3D Printing Applications
Maybe you also like:
- Making short run injection molds with 3D printing
- 3Drag 3D printer kit
- High strength taulman 645, 1.75mm Co-Polymer released
- yeggi: search engine for printable 3D models
- Rotary valve might help manned space flights to Mars one day
- 3D printed 1:10 OpenRC truggy car in action (videos)
- mUVe 1: an open-source UV resin based 3D printer
- Airwolf releases affordable large-scale 3D printer
- Low-cost open source Cyrus 3D printer on Kickstarter
- Personalized bed, table or desk based on your DNA
- Jet engine maker Pratt to invest $8 Million in digital lab At UConn
- See 4D printing: "smart" components that can assemble themselves (videos)
- New 3D scanner creates high-resolution 3D images from a kilometer away
- Midwest RepRap Festival video: What the RepRap project is all about
- Breakthrough: 3D printer creates artificial human tissue
- 3D Systems Launches 3DMe figurines on Cubify
Hello I am a French blogger of a site on 3D printing. Could you tell me what is the brand of the 3D printer that was used to make these implants? What type of material were they made?