一组工程师和小儿骨科医生正在使用3D打印来帮助培训外科医生和缩短9至16岁儿童最常见的髋关节疾病的手术。在最近的一项研究中，研究人员表明，允许外科医生准备3D印刷的3D印刷model of the patient’s hip joint cut by about 25 percent the amount of time needed for surgery when compared to a control group.
该团队包括加利福尼亚大学圣地亚哥大学的生物工程师和Rady Children Hospital的医生，在最近的一期杂志上详细介绍了他们的发现Journal of Children’s Orthopaedics.
“Being able to practice on these 3D-models is crucial,” said Dr. Vidyadhar Upasani, pediatric orthopedic surgeon at Rady Children’s and UC San Diego and the paper’s senior author.
在这项研究中，Upasani对总共10例患者进行了操作。对于五名患者，他计划使用3D打印模型进行手术。他没有使用模型来计划其他五个。此外，另外两名外科医生在不使用模型的情况下对另一组五名患者进行操作。在Upasani使用3D打印模型的组中，与两个对照组相比，手术短38-45分钟。研究人员说，这些时间的节省将转化为每次手术至少储蓄2700美元。相比之下，在以大约2200美元的价格购买3D打印机的一次性成本之后，医生可以为每次手术制作一个型号，大约10美元。
Upasani说，这项研究的结果是如此积极，以至于Rady儿童骨科部门已经收购了自己的3D打印机。他说：“我已经看到了3D模型有多有益。”“现在很难没有他们进行手术。”
股本股骨骨phse骨的滑倒是每年美国100,000名儿童中约11个儿童的疾病。
在这种情况下，患者的股骨头沿着骨骼的生长板滑动，使其变形。手术的主要目标是将股骨塑造回其正常形状并恢复髋关节功能。这很困难，因为在手术过程中，骨骼及其生长板不直接可见。因此，外科医生无法在3D中可视化生长板如何变形。该疾病与肥胖和激素功能障碍有关，随着年轻人的肥胖增加而变得越来越普遍。
Traditionally, before the surgery, physicians study X-rays of the surgery site taken from different angles, which they use to plan the bone cuts. During surgery, an X-ray fluoroscopy beam also shines periodically on the surgery site to help guide the physician. These methods are time consuming and expose the child to radiation. In addition, physicians don’t have a physical model to educate patients or practice the surgery beforehand.
如何制作3D打印模型
In this study, two UC San Diego students, Jason Caffrey, pursuing a Ph.D. in bioengineering, and Lillia Cherkasskiy, pursuing an M.D. and conducting her Independent Studies Project, teamed up with Upasani, bioengineering professor Robert Sah, and their colleagues. They used commercially available software to process CT scans of the patients’ pelvis and create a computerized model of bone and growth plate for 3D printing. The models allowed surgeons to practice and visualize the surgery before they operated in the real world.
One of the biggest obstacles was getting the right texture for the 3D prints, so that they mimic bone. If the texture was too thick, the model would melt under the surgeon’s tools; if too thin, it would break. The engineers finally settled on a honeycomb-like structure to mimic bones for their models. The printing process itself took four to 10 hours for each print.
The 3D printing effort was led by Caffrey, in the lab of professor Sah at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego. The inspiration and foundations for the study came from BENG 1, a hands-on engineering class that Sah, a world leader in tissue engineering and cartilage repair, co-taught in 2015 and Caffrey helped set up. Students 3D printed models of complex ankle bone fractures from CT scans of UC San Diego patients. BENG 1 continues to be a part of the “Experience Engineering” initiative introduced by Albert P. Pisano, dean of the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego.
Filed Under:3D printing • additive manufacturing • stereolithography,M2M (machine to machine)
