CBSNEWS.COM – Malta 3D Printing

A 3D printer saved the lives of three baby boys with the same life-threatening condition, their doctors report in the latest issue of Science Translational Medicine.

Kaiba Gionfriddo was six weeks old when he turned blue because his lungs weren’t getting enough oxygen. He was diagnosed with a terminal form of tracheobronchomalacia, a medical condition that causes the windpipe to periodically collapse and prevents normal breathing. With no cure and a low life expectancy, doctors told his mother April he may not make it out of the hospital alive.

Kaiba was one of the three babies who became the first in the world to receive 3D-printed devices that helped keep their airways open so they could breathe properly, thus saving their lives. “These cases broke new ground for us because we were able to use 3D printing to design a device that successfully restored patients’ breathing through a procedure that had never been done before,” Glenn Green, MD, an associate professor of pediatric otolaryngology at the University of Michigan’s C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, said in a statement.

Tracheobronchomalacia affects about 1 in 2,000 children around the world, according to the doctors, and renders them unable to fully exhale. Using a 3D printer, Green and his colleagues were able to create and implant a customized splint around the airways of the three boys to expand the trachea and bronchus. This 3D printed device is made to change shape over time as the children grow, and eventually be reabsorbed by the body as the condition is cured.

The findings in the report suggest that this early intervention may prevent complications of conventional treatment of tracheobronchomalacia such as a tracheostomy, prolonged hospitalization, mechanical ventilation, cardiac and respiratory arrest, food malabsorption and discomfort.

Kaiba was the first to receive the implant three years ago and his doctors report that the splint has degraded and he appears to be disease-free. “Before this procedure, babies with severe tracheobronchomalacia had little chance of surviving,” Green said. “Today, our first patient Kaiba is an active, healthy 3-year-old in preschool with a bright future. The device worked better than we could have ever imagined.”

Two other children have also had success with the device.

Garrett Peterson received one a the age of 16 months. Garrett spent the first year of his life in hospital beds tethered to a ventilator, being fed through his veins because his body was too sick to absorb food.

Since receiving the device, he has not shown signs of any complications and is leading a normal life, able to breathe properly, doctors say.

Ian Orbich’s condition was so grave that his heart stopped before he was even six months old. He received a customized 3D-printed splint and is now doing well at the age of 17 months.

Green and his colleagues received emergency clearance from the FDA to do the procedures. While these three cases appear to be a huge success, the doctors noted that this technology will take time to put into widespread practice. “The potential of 3D-printed medical devices to improve outcomes for patients is clear, but we need more data to implement this procedure in medical practice,” Green said. The authors also acknowledge that potential complications of the procedure may not yet be evident.

Yet if you ask Kaiba’s mom, April Gionfriddo, the procedure was nothing short of a miracle. “The first time he was hospitalized, doctors told us he may not make it out,” she said in a statement. “It was scary knowing he was the first child to ever have this procedure, but it was our only choice and it saved his life.”

cbsnews.com

by ASHLEY WELCH, CBS NEWS | April 29, 2015, 2:05 PM

3D printed Star Wars prosthetic arm

Posted on 23/03/201517/08/2015 by Malta 3D Printing

A Young American Received A 3D Printed Gift That Transformed His Life

http://goo.gl/K3X0BL

Georgia boy receives 3D-printed Star Wars prosthetic arm

Nearly every young boy is obsessed with Star Wars. But for Liam Porter of Augusta, Georgia, a Star Wars obsession may actually be warranted — he’s got a mechanical limb like many of the characters in the galaxy far, far away.

The 7-year-old was born without his left arm below the elbow, and his family has struggled for years to find a prosthetic that he could be proud of and is able to use with ease.

On Saturday, his life changed when Liam was greeted at his local movie theater by people wearing Star Wars costumes and given the best gift he could ever dream up: a functional new prosthetic arm like that of Luke Sykwalker himself. The prosthetic was made using 3D printing technology, according to the Augusta Chronicle, the newspaper that first reported the story.

Liam’s prosthetic is the brainchild of John Peterson, who recently acquired a 3D printer and was searching around the web for nifty projects he could do with it to occupy his time.

Peterson happened upon e-NABLE, an online community of 3D-printing geeks who volunteer their technology — and time — to make prosthetics for people in need, especially kids. Volunteers from the organization work with professional designers and engineers, and open-source schematics for free to anyone who wants them.

Using 3D technology has strong advantages in this case. Many insurance companies do not cover costly prostheses for children because they will quickly outgrow them. While a standard prosthetic hand for child may cost upward of $9,000, a 3D printed version can be made for just a fraction of that amount. It took Peterson about three months to make Liam’s new limb at a cost of about $300.

Along with the his new arm, the local group of costumed Star Wars enthusiasts presented Liam with a helmet and a “Friends of the Garrison” 501st Legion certificate, which makes his Stormtrooper appointment official.

The Force is certainly proud of Liam.

References:

CBSNEWS.COM

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/boy-receives-3d-printed-star-wars-prosthetic-arm/

3D printing revolutionizing burn treatment!

Posted on 23/03/201514/08/2015 by Malta 3D Printing

3D Printing may replace skin grafting for burn victims in the future! Check out how by following the link below 🙂

http://www.cbsnews.com/…/how-3d-printing-could-revolutioni…/

How 3D printing could revolutionize burn treatment

TORONTO – Dr. Marc Jeschke, the head of one of Canada’s largest burn treatment centers, had to admit the 3D skin printer in his hands didn’t look revolutionary.

“I actually find it kind of fish-tanky,” he told CBS News, laughing. But this boxy prototype could change the way burns are treated, from current skin grafting methods Jeschke calls “barbaric” to a process his team believes will be faster, cheaper and easier on the patient, with an end result — functional human skin — promising to be just like the real thing.

“It’s cutting edge,” said Jeschke, the director ofRoss Tilley Burn Centre at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, whose team developed the process and printer in collaboration with researchers from the University of Toronto. “We can mimic how your skin looks. And that’s the evolvement, that’s something new, that’s something novel.”

To begin the process of creating new human skinon the printer, Jeschke explained that healthy skin cells are first harvested from the burn patient, then analyzed and multiplied in the lab.

“We grow these cells in various containers and make them exactly into the cell type that we want,” said Jeschke. Then, “the printer tells the cells where to go.”

It does so via a cartridge, which weaves the cells together with a gel-like matrix serving as the skin’s 3D scaffolding. The cellular tapestry that emerges from the cartridge floats through the printer’s reservoir and gathers around a rotating drum. The strips are then collected and cultured.

“You basically imprint your various cells into this three-dimensional matrix that comes out and it’s basically ready to be put on the patient,” said Jeschke.

The printer is still in preclinical trials, but Jeschke’s team said they hope to move to human trials within two years, and if those go well, printers like these could be in hospitals and helping burn patients within five years.

But to get there, Jeschke said the project will need more funding. In September, members of the team were selected as the Canadian winners of the 2014 James Dyson Award, a prestigious international engineering prize that comes with cash, but only a fraction of what it will cost to get the project across the finish line.

And there are other questions that still need to be answered.

Growing enough cells remains a challenge. “That’s the current issue, which is how to get cells to magnify, multiply and grow in a speed that’s beyond what they normally do,” Jeschke said.

Should they succeed, they’ll help change a process Jeschke said is in dire need of an upgrade. Current skin grafts for burn victims require removing a healthy section of a patient’s skin to cover their wound, essentially creating a second wound in the process. The greater percentage of the body that’s burned, the more skin that’s needed — and the less that’s available. Skin removed for these grafts can be expanded, but not by much.

“Your donor site, once you take the skin, of course has to heal,” explained Jeschke. “So a patient with 40 percent burn or 50 percent burn is usually in a hospital about 80 to 100 days.”

With their printer, Jeschke and his team think they can cut that recovery time down significantly. And while other methods can leave patients with skin that doesn’t match their natural color, or lacks follicles or sweat glands, researchers on the project say their method will allow them to eventually add those complex layers of cells.

“Someone will be able to take their own cells, and incorporate it into this printer and have skin graft printed that are made especially for them,” said Lian Leng, a PhD student at the the University of Toronto’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and one of the lead developers of the printer, commercially known as the PrintAlive Bioprinter.

The printer could have a critical impact in underdeveloped countries, where even a small burn can be fatal. Researchers on the project plan to train doctors in Cambodia to grow cells and operate the printer themselves.

Such a device could also provide critical support to soldiers burned on the battlefield. That’s prompting the U.S. military to fund similar projects, like one at Wake Forest University in North Carolina.

“You probably can reduce war fatalities significantly if you have an off-the-shelf skin product that can be put on,” said Jeschke.

Leng agreed with Jeschke’s assessment of the printer’s looks — “It really is a mini version of a fish tank.”

It’s a fish tank, though, that could eventually save lives.

CBSNEWS.COM

by ALEXANDER TROWBRIDGE, CBS NEWS | November 13, 2014, 5:01 AM