Apr 21, 2017 | By Benedict
A 27-year-old woman from Shanghai is set to undergo a one-year facial reconstruction process after losing much of her face to infection as a child, according to sources in China. 3D printing will be used to create guides for the new facial features.
Going a couple of decades without a face sounds like something that would happen in a Kafka or Gogol story, not real life. For 27-year-old Jin Qi, however the situation couldn’t be more real. After contracting a rare form of sepsis at a young age, the Chinese woman has lived most of her life without a mouth or nose, both of which were lost to infection after her autoimmune system went haywire.
Sources in China are reporting that Jin, who was born in the central Chinese province of Hubei and now lives in Shenzhen, is set to undergo a radical one-year, four-stage facial reconstruction procedure, thanks in part to new 3D printing technology that will allow doctors to build special models of the new parts of her face. Expert surgeon Li Qingfeng will oversee the procedure.
Although the sources say that cutting-edge 3D printing technology will be used to fabricate guiding models of Jin’s new face, the materials used to build the face itself will come from somewhere more familiar: the patient’s own chest. Tissue on the chest, similar in color and texture to that of the face, can supposedly be easily reshaped and transplanted.
At present, we don’t know much about the 3D printing process being used to create these facial models, or how exactly they will be used to sculpt the human tissue. Images provided by Chinese news sources suggest that the models are plastic.
What we do know is that Jin, who is now a graphic designer with a passion for design and photography, decided to undergo the lengthy procedure after posting her story online and receiving lots of advice from medical professionals and sympathetic readers. The patient even raised money for her complex procedure via a crowdfunding campaign.
Sources say that 42 facial reconstruction procedures of a similar nature have already been carried out in China. Although the long-term effects of such new techniques are not yet know, the patient should be comforted by the fact that many have been in her position before.
Before going into the operating theater for the first of four surgical procedures, Jin was in an upbeat mood: “If this surgery is successful,” she said, “I will be more confident in front of other people.”
Posted in 3D Printing Application
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That is crazy, but for her !
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