Many doctors these days are now including 3D printing as part of their many surgical procedures. Dr. Jamie Levine from NYU Langone noted that there is a paradigm shift when it comes to doing surgical procedure in terms of using and relying on 3D printing.
A lot of hospitals all over the United States have already embraced 3D printing to create tools, models or craft tissues used for surgery. One of the hospitals that are leading the paradigm shift is the Institute for Reconstructive Plastic
Surgery on the anterior crucial ligament (ACL) is difficult. The standard surgical procedure involves drilling a tunnel on the tibia to remove the ligament and reconstructing it by using transplanted graft. In most cases, the affected area that has been treated has a good chance of re-tearing after being repaired. However, this technique has many limitations such as entering the knee through the tibia can make it difficult to reattach the ligament to the original attachment point.
Having sa
Creating multicellular structures is a delicate procedure. For instance, the human heart is comprised of more than 2 billions of muscle cells that should be aligned and interact with one another to work properly. While 3D Bioprinting is a promising technology that allows scientists to create biological tissues, the problem remains—there is no single method available that uses a high level of precision to create multicellular structures that are functional, viable, and has good integrity.
Res
A kidney transplant is a very sensitive operation and patients need to be compatible so that the organ recipient will not reject the donor organ. 3D printing paved the way for surgeons to be able to transplant an adult kidney to a toddler recipient.
In Northern Ireland, a 3-year old toddler is the first child in the world to survive a kidney transplant using adult kidneys. The toddler suffered from heart failure which had dire consequences on her kidneys as they were robbed of oxygen. Instea
3D bioprinters are able to print living tissues for medical transplants and testing to name a few. However, recreating human tissues require a combination of human cells, biogels as well as different types of bioink materials aside from the nutrients and oxygen needed by the cells to survive. Specialized 3D bioprinters do not come cheap and they can cost between $100,000 and a million dollars depending on their specifications.
With the aim of developing an affordable 3D bioprinter, inventor
3D printing is becoming an important feature in the field of medical science and its wide recognition in improving medical technology made it possible for many doctors all over the world to come up with innovations in treating their patients. Speaking of innovation, the Collegiate Inventors Competition encourages students to use 3D printing in redefining the way scientists use this technology.
The recent competition was attended by 14 finalist teams from all over the United States. One of th
3D printing technology is becoming mainstream in many first world countries. Unfortunately, poor countries are not able to benefit from this innovation. 3D printing is a technology that could have benefited many patients from poor countries especially those who are in need of quality prosthetics. London-based 3D printing company 3D LifePrints was able to provide 3D prosthetics to amputee patients from poor and developing countries. It was estimated that more than 15 million amputees from the poo
Taiwanese surgeons have been using the 3D printing technology to perform complex surgical procedures in order to reduce the surgery time as well as its risks. One of the complex surgical procedures that 3D printing technology was used on is the complex orthognathic procedure which is a corrective jaw or cheek reduction surgery.
Conventional surgery is an arduous task not only for the surgeons but also to the patients. In this case, patients who undergo facial skeletal surgery may develop
Researches have been made on advancing the applications of 3D bioprinting. Thru this healthcare professionals are able to address complicated injuries and illnesses.
The process of 3D bioprinting is utilized to generate tissues or living cells that help sustain growth and cell function within the printed cell or tissue. Patent on bioprinting was filed last 2003 and by 2006, it was then approved. It paved the way to more researches and encouraged hospitals and other research groups to co
A lot of people have heart problems and there is a long list of those seeking transplant because unlike other parts of the body, tissues of the heart do not repair or regenerate on its own. Fixing heart ailments often requires surgical procedures and these surgeries are often difficult and risky.
There may be an answer to these challenges thru a process known as 3D bioprinting. This method has been advocated to remedy the need for transplanting of tissues and organs. The process on 3D biopri
The creation of stem cells using 3D printers can bring a lot of changes in the world particularly in the field of medicine. One important application for stem cells is drug testing. Millions of laboratory animals will be spared if 3D printing can create stem cells.
Collaboration between the researchers from Tsinghua University in China and Drexel University in Philadelphia developed a way of growing embryonic stem cell structures. To create the stem cell structures, researchers used an ext
The 3D printing technology has proven itself a very useful innovation in the field of medical technology. In fact, this technology is no longer restricted to making medical models to help surgeons plan their operation but progress has been made such that construction of delicate tissues is now possible.
One of the most intriguing things that can be created with 3D printers is the knee cartilage. Scientists from the Texas Tech University and Texas A&M University were able to develop a wa
Blessing Makwera is the Zimbabwean man who was the recipient of Operation Hope, a California organization that offers surgical care and procedures to individuals in developing nations. Makwera was only 15 years old when he figured in a tragic accident that left his upper and lower jaws severely disfigured due to an exploding land mine. Although he survived the accident, he had to live with his misshapen face for eight years before becoming the happy recipient of the Operation Hope.
Makwera n
Canadian Surgeon Dr. Ivar Mendez is the head of surgery at the University of Saskatchewan. Dr. Mendez reported that he always prepares before a brain surgery via the use of computer simulations. Given the fact that brain surgery is a very sensitive operation wherein it involves opening the skull and toe brain folds are inserted with electrodes. A miscalculation on the part of the surgeon can cause irreversible damage depending on the specific part of the brain involved. That’s why the meticulous
Surgical transplantation procedures such as heart transplants can be very difficult to work with and this is the reason why patients have to join a long waitlist, along with other patients, in the hopes of getting a transplant. However, researchers from the Carnegie Mellon University want to improve the chances of getting a transplant early by developing a method for 3D bioprinting soft tissues.
Currently, the 3D printing technology uses materials like titanium and silicone to create flexibl
The 3D printing technology provides revolutionary roles in the fast evolving field of medical technology. China-based company, Revotek, announced their custom-made 3D bioprinter that can print real blood vessels and other multiple layers of cells. What makes this news truly revolutionary is that no other commercially available 3D bioprinters have done this before.
Yang Keng, Revotek’s chairman, noted that the company’s new 3D bioprinting system includes bio inks, medical imaging cloud platf
3D bioprinting has a lot of applications in the field of medicine. Innovators are making significant contributions to the development of the said technology. Aside from prosthetics, researchers can now use 3D bioprinting for stem cell research.
Researchers from the Heriot-Watt University in Scotland was the first group to 3D print stem cells using the valve-based technique. Dr. Will Shu, the lead researcher of the experiment, wants to use 3D printing technology for patient-specific drug tre
3D printing provides a variety of applications for the field of medicine including cosmetic surgery. Currently, leading 3D printing technology 3D Systems partnered with a New York-based company to make cosmetic surgery experience more efficient for both client and surgeons.
Dr. Carrie Stern from the New York-based company MirrorMe3D noted that the use of 3D printing technology can help patients by creating before and after colored models of the parts that the patients need work on; for pat
3D bioprinting is an important innovation in medical science. Through this wonderful innovation, researchers were able to make important applications. In fact, it is now possible for researchers to create organs like human ears; however this technology finds it difficult to create soft structures that have minute internal support. Unfortunately, 3D bioprinting still cannot print small structures like the veins or small organs because they have the tendency to collapse even before they can become
3D printing is widely used in the medical industry to create a wide array of innovations to help different patients suffering from various maladies. Currently, all eyes are at Croatia as researchers were able to perform a successful operation on a patient suffering from spinal tumor. It is not common to hear innovations on treating spinal maladies using 3D printing, but what makes this particular operation innovative was that it is the first one to use all 3D-printed acrylic vertebra–the first o
The 3D printing technology is constantly being innovated by dedicated scientists and researchers to improve its many applications in the field of engineering, manufacturing and medicine. The research center of the National University of La Plata in Argentina, LIFIA, created a special 3D printer head that has the ability to control two syringes thus allowing medical researcher to print biopolymers with complicated geometric patterns. This new innovation won an award and received funding for furth
3D printing has become an indispensable tool in the medical industry. It has encompassed numerous applications from creating simple customized medical tools, surgical models, implants, to orthopedic casts.
This technology continues to expand as researchers develop many intriguing yet effective devices using a simple 3D printer. One such innovation introduced to the world recently was the 3D printed braces intended for patients with scoliosis.
3D Systems, the South Carolina-based comp
The 3D printing technology provides the medical industry with viable solutions for complicated medical procedures. Today, 3D printing is no longer used in creating prosthetics but also in synthetically creating natural-occurring cells and tissues.
Fabricating cells and tissues using 3D printing technology is a complex method. However, researchers were able to create breast cancer tissues and gland tissues to study disease progression and also drug testing. The key to the success of printing
As 3D printing technology has gained traction in the medical field, researchers were able to use the said technology to develop groundbreaking techniques to regenerate nerves for both motor and sensory functions. Regenerating nerves is a complicated process thus people with injuries involving nerves suffer from permanent damage. With the new technique, scientists hope to help more than hundreds of thousands of patients suffering from nerve diseases.
To regenerate nerves using the 3D printin
Cancer research is very important in helping many people who are battling with cancer. However, the difficulty with cancer research is that it is challenging to test drugs while using live human tissues. A recent breakthrough done by the University of San Francisco had led to the development of a new technique called DNA Programmed Assembly of Cells.
Postdoctoral fellow Alex Hughes explained that the technique is all about creating biological equivalents of the LEGO bricks which can grow cel
