Navigation
3D Printed Hip Implant: Teenager Walks Again Posted by : replicatorworld On : February 27, 2014
0
Ca te g o ry : March 2014
Fanny Fellesen, a 15-year-old from Sweden, “suffered from a congenital disease [Von Recklinghausen’s Disease] which [caused] a neurofibroma, a benign tumor which grows on the peripheral nervous system, [resulting in] extensive damage to her pelvis. When surgery to remove the neurofibroma was followed by complications and ultimately a severe skeletal deformation of her left hip, the treatment options were limited and her doctors were uncertain if she would ever walk again.” However, as reported by Gizmag, Professor Rydholm of Skane University Hospital in Lund, Sweden, who was in charge of Fellesen’s case, contacted Mobelife, a Belgium-based implant design company, which describes itself as “a specialist in implant design and production for challenging bone and joint reconstruction surgery.” Mobelife was able to create a custom implant using “a tomography scan, which creates a picture of [Fellesen’s] unique bone anatomy. The implant was then used to reconstruct the defect, with screws attaching the implant placed strategically, based on the quality of the surrounding bone.” As for Fellesen, whose operation took “place in September 2012, she was pain free almost immediately afterwards. By Christmas she was out of her wheelchair and walking with one crutch, and now some 18 months later, is walking entirely un-aided.”