Nextgov https://www.nextgov.com, as part of the Tech Talks Series, held their “Emerging TECH Summit” https://#EmergingTechSummit August 14, 2019. Beth Ripley MD, PhD, Senior Innovation Fellow Department of Veterans Affairs, and Chair of the 3D Printing Advisory Committee at the Veterans Health Administration https://www.va.gov/health, highlighted how important a role 3-D printing is playing today in medicine.
She said, “3-D printing is able to create three dimensional objects to help hospitals, veterans, and medical professionals throughout the VA. 3-D printing creates an object by using material that is layered on top of each other, piece by piece, also known as additive manufacturing. These models can provide surgeons with a better understanding of each patient’s specific anatomy as compared with standard CT image review”.
For example, “One of the 3-D printing efforts helping patients is developing prints of model kidneys for patients with renal cancer. Surgeons are using the information to aid in pre-surgical planning by enabling surgeons to plan their surgical approach to maximize preservation of normal kidney tissue and avoid disturbing unaffected vessels that surround a tumor.”
The Baltimore VA Medical Center has demonstrated how 3-D printing at the VA is more useful for orthopedic surgeons in planning shoulder replacement surgery than current approaches. Shoulder replacement surgery is commonly performed to treat arthritis which is widespread among veterans and the general population.
However, the small amount of bone at the socket side of the shoulder joint is a major challenge to the long term durability of shoulder replacements. 3-D printed models of the shoulder provide an additional tool for surgeons to use in pre-surgical planning, leading to longer lasting shoulder replacements.
The VA continues to expand their national integrated virtual 3-D printing network at the VA’s Puget Sound Healthcare System which now has innovators using 3-D printing to solve a wide range of issues, from pre-surgical planning to manufacturing hand and foot orthotics.
NIH also investing in 3-D printing, reports, “Occupational therapists are using 3-D printers to manufacture specialized hand orthotics, in order to provide same day fitting and delivery which can reduce the need for multiple visits. The digital blueprint can then be saved, so a replacement can be printed quickly if the orthotic breaks or is damaged.”
A NIH study with Daniel S. Reich, MD PhD PI at NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke https://www.ninda.nih.gov has shown that by using a high powered brain scanner and a 3-D printer, researchers are able to peer inside the brains of hundreds of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) patients. They have found that dark rimmed spots represent ongoing smoldering inflammation called chronic active lesions, which may signal severe MS.
NIH reports researchers are also using specialized 3-D printers to grow tissue and human organs. The National Institute of General Medical Sciences has devised a way to use 3-D bio-printing technology to construct the small air sacs in the lungs and intricate blood vessels. New materials are being developed that act as bio-seeds to help the body rebuild tissue around 3-D printed scaffolds.