Sep 20, 2018 | By Thomas
With assistance from Georgia Tech, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta has performed Georgia’s first-ever procedure to place 3D printed tracheal splints in a pediatric patient. The team used three 3D printed custom-made splints to assist the breathing of a 7-month-old patient battling life-threatening airway obstruction.
The patient was suffering with congenital heart disease and tracheo-bronchomalacia, a condition that causes severe life-threatening airway obstruction. During his six-month inpatient stay in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Children’s, he endured frequent episodes of airway collapse that could not be corrected by regular surgery methods. The clinical team proposed surgically inserting an experimental 3D-printed tracheal splint, which is a novel device still in development, to open his airways and expand the trachea and bronchus.
The splints were designed by Scott Hollister, who holds the Patsy and Alan Dorris Endowed Chair in Pediatric Technology, a joint initiative supported by Georgia Tech and Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.
The procedure begins by obtaining CT scan of the patient’s airway. Hollister and his team created multiple versions of the splint, of varying sizes, to ensure the perfect fit was available for the surgical team to place around the patient’s airways during surgery.
(Images credit: Rob Felt, Georgia Tech)
In a complex 10-hour surgery, Children’s cross-functional team of surgeons successfully placed three 3D-printed splints around the patient’s trachea on the morning of August 17, 2018. The splints will eventually be absorbed into the body, allowing for expansion of the trachea and bronchus.
As the tracheal procedure concluded, the child was placed on a heart lung machine for surgical repair of his cardiac defect.
The 3D-printed tracheal splint is a new device still in development, as its safety and effectiveness have not yet been determined and is therefore not available for clinical use. The Children’s team sought emergency clearance from the FDA to move forward with the procedure under expanded access guidelines.
“The possibility of using 3D printing technology to save the life of a child is our motivation in the lab every day,” said Hollister, who is also the director of the Center for 3D Medical Fabrication at Georgia Tech and a professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. “We’re determined to develop innovative solutions that meet the needs of Georgia’s most complex pediatric patients.”
Posted in 3D Printing Application
Maybe you also like:
- MoSculp: MIT CSAIL uses AI to create 3D printed “motion sculptures” from 2D videos
- Two Plymouth students create 3D printed PINK prosthetic breasts to help cancer survivors
- ETH Zurich prints tough, lightweight structures using FDM 3D printers and liquid-crystal-polymers
- LLNL explores machine learning to prevent defects in metal 3D-printed parts in real time
- AMT launches PostPro3D automated surface smoothing machine for 3D printed parts
- Hailey Dawson, 8-year-old with 3D printed hand throws 1st pitch at all 30 MLB parks
- Johnson & Johnson acquires 3D printed spinal implant maker Emerging Implant Technologies
- LEGO and Stanley Black & Decker back Evolve Additive Solutions with $19M funding
- Lockheed Martin teams With Deakin University to exploit FORTIS Exoskeleton
- Awesome 3D printed Millennium Falcon took 10 days to complete
3Ders.org provides the latest news about 3D printing technology and 3D printers. We are now seven years old and have around 1.5 million unique visitors per month.
