3D printing, or known as additive layer manufacturing, gives new hope to patients who are in need of implants that were previously unavailable. Because of 3D printing, different kinds of personalized implants are made through medical scanning and imaging technologies (CT, MRI, ultrasound). This new and advanced approach on healthcare not only offers quicker and more affordable solutions, but it’s an increasingly improving practice that can evolve and possibly rewrite the course of medicine’s history.
A German patient with degenerative cervical spine problem was a recipient of an anatomically adapted 3D printed titanium fusion implant, the first time it has happened in the world. Planned and performed by Uwe Spetzger, the surgery involved an implant that was designed by EIT Emerging Implant Technologies GmbH.
Spetzger is a professor and chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at Klinikum Karlsruhe in Germany, while EIT Emerging Implant Technology is a start-up company focusing on 3D printed implant solutions, which is an emerging medical sector in the field of 3D printing.
The technology allowed the mimicking of the patient’s trabecular bone structure, which is made possible by EIT’s cellular titanium with micro-, macro-, and nanostructural features. It will give the patient stability as it speeds up the bone healing and osseointegration, the process of titanium fusing into the human bone.
The titanium implant, through the surgery, will provide an optimal biomechanical and a biological environment for natural bone fusion without a separate surgery to add a bone graft. Through digital imaging and 3D printing, the titanium trabecular bone structure is exactly what the patient previously had before having problems with it.
3D printing has many benefits, aside from cost and time saving, and this includes individualization. Individualization is another term for personalization that is now applied in surgeries adapting the technology. With this, implant-related complications such as implant migrations or delayed fusion are reduced since the implants are anatomically similar to what the patient needs.
“We are fascinated by the possibilities of this new technology combining modern computer-aided design and custom-made manufacturing of a high-tech cervical implant. The future of patient individualized spinal implants has begun,” Spetzger said in a statement.
In Australia, a 71-year-old patient is back on his feet after receiving a titanium-printed heel, the first of its kind in the world. Len Chandler survived prostate cancer, though he had undergone two knee replacements and lost one eye due to an accident. After surviving the cancer, Chandler had a new bout as he was diagnosed with a rare kind of cartilage cancer that existed in his right heel.
Doctors at Melbourne’s St. Vincent’s Hospital has advised the patient of a needed surgery, with the possibility of amputating his foot. Prepared and ready for the worst scenario, Chandler accepted the fact that he could be living the rest of his life in immobility. Luckily, 3D printing technology and titanium came to the rescue.
A few months after the diagnosis, doctors explored a radical alternative solution that involves 3D printing. The surgeons taking Chandler’s case scanned the patient’s heel into a computer to produce a digital copy that was used to create a plastic 3D model. The plastic model was then used to 3D print a titanium replica heel. Peter Choong, a member of the team, said that the titanium heel has the ability to simulate the functions that the original bone would have, and without 3D printing, recovery could not be possible.
“First of all the shape, strength, also parts of it have to be nice and polished where it has to run or articulate, as we say, against different other bones. For example, you have the shin coming down on to it, you have the foot bones in front of it and they would provide very complex surfaces that you could not normally match with,” explained Choong in a post by ABC Australia.
After the surgery and 12 days of post-surgery treatments, Chandler returned to his home carrying positive effects of the implant. Slowly gaining control over his body through crutches, Chandler says that the surgery did not have bad effects.
“I’ve got no irritation or pain or anything from that. It just fits perfect. I couldn’t ask for anything better,” said the patient.
The two cases mentioned above are only some of the hundreds of lives that titanium implants have improved. Titanium, as a metal, is highly in demand in the medical sector. According to a report, 2.2 million pounds of titanium is implanted in patients around the world each year, with the number expected to grow because of the 3D printing technology and its evolving applications in medicine. Supply will be secured by mines focusing on the production of titanium and Chile’s White Mountain Titanium (OTCQB: WMTM) is one of these mines. White Mountain sits on a titanium-rich deposit in Cerro Blanco, Santiago, and aims to produce 112 tons of high-grade rutile, which will be then sold to titanium manufacturers and distributors all over the world, including businesses and companies that are starting to build their own niches in 3D printing’s titanium implant solutions.
