Wow of the week: Surgeons to give man 3-D printed face

Life science current events have thrilled at 3-D printing: an ear, a hand, tiny organs, even raw materials. For the next magic trick, surgeons in Britain will use 3-D printing to reconstruct a man’s face. The patient’s face was severely injured on one side due to a motorcycle accident. Doctors have used a CT scan to come up with a mirror-image of the unaffected side of the man’s face, so a Belgian specialist facility can create titanium guides and implants.

According to the Daily Mail:

The project is the work of the Centre of Applied Reconstructive Technologies in Surgery (Cartis), established in 2006 as a partnership between Morriston Hospital’s Maxillofacial Unit and Product Design and Research (PDR) based at Cardiff Metropolitan University.

Cartis aims to make Wales a world leader in the research, development and application of advanced medical technologies in surgery.

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Specialists and surgeons in Swansea also are playing a major role in the procedure.

According to the BBC:

The use of this method for injury-related reconstructions is thought to be among the first in the world. . . .

There have been cases using custom-made titanium implants to correct congenital conditions, those which arise at birth or shortly after.

However, this is thought to be one of the first such reconstructions following an injury.

The patient’s facial bones will need to be repositioned during the surgery, which has already been virtually designed. The date of the surgery is to be determined.

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