3D Printer Used to Recreate Human Thumb Bones
A group of doctors and scientists in Switzerland successfully used a 3D printer to build a replica of the bone of a human thumb, and used the replica as a sort of “scaffold” that can be used to assist in the regeneration of an actual human thumb bone.
The idea can theoretically be applied to all bones in the human body, although the scientists used human thumb bones for now. The research team is headed by Christian Weinand of the Insel Hospital in Berne, Switzerland.
The breakthrough is considered revolutionary as it presents surgeons with the option to replace lost or irreparably damaged human bones with exact replicas, as opposed to the current practice where bone fragments from elsewhere in the body are used to replace lost bones.
The process that was tested in Switzerland consisted of creating a 3D image of the bone that needs to be replaced. If, for example, a patient lost his left thumb, then a mirror image of his right thumb can be used. This image is fed into a 3D printer for printing. The scientists loaded the 3D printer with natural structural materials found in the human body – tricalcium phosphate and a type of polylactic acid – which then creates a 3D print with thousands of tiny pores.
This 3D model may then be used to regenerate the human bone using cells from the patient which can settle into the model bone’s pores, where it will grow and eventually displace the biodegradable model.
The research team used CD117 cells from bone marrow. These cells grow into osteoblasts, which are primordial bone cells. The team then syringed the osteoblasts onto the bone model, or scaffold, in a gel whose purpose is to support and nourish the cells. The scaffolds were then sewn under the skin on the backs of laboratory mice, where they were left to grow. After 15 weeks, the scaffold has changed into human bone.
Tags: 3d printer, 3D printing, 3d thumb model, recreate human thumbRelated posts
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Loading ...Posted by PrintFriendly on April 16th, 2009
4 Comments »
Wow this is truly amazing, I can’t believe that is happening that one can use a 3d picture to decide how surgery is going to happening , this ever hanging technology is just fantastic.
[...] Printing Glass with Vitraglyphic Processing We have done quite a few features on three-dimensional printing over the past few months, from do-it-yourself 3D printers to printers with the ability to print 3D [...]
[...] A group of doctors and scientists in Switzerland successfully used a 3D printer to build a replica of the bone of a human thumb. The replica thumb bone is printed with a biodegradable material that attracts bone-growing cells. These cells slowly replace the material and create human bone inside the person’s body. Read more: http://printerinkcartridgesblog.printcountry.com/?p=1916#ixzz0UA4xz5PT [...]
April 27, 2009 @ 5:40 pm
I’ve seen 3d printing used for pre-op surgeries in Iraq, but, never as a scaffold for growing bone. Truly amazing. We’ve 3d printed 3d models of a jawbone from an MRI. You can see some of our 3d prints at 3dventures.com