A 16-year-old boy and a woman in her 60s are able to walk and move freely thanks to a 3D printed implant developed by Utrecht’s UMC teaching hospital.

The treatment, which involves a made-to-measure titanium implant developed by a team of engineers, surgeons and scientists, was the subject of a paper in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet earlier this week.

‘We now have a blueprint for other hospitals who want to offer the treatment,’ physician and 3D print expert Koen Willemsen said.

For Rick Duwel, who has neurofibromatosis which causes his spine to become unstable, the operation was an intervention of last resort. His spine collapsed and the implant was the only way complete paralysis could be avoided in the long run. ‘What we came up with was a 3D printed titanium spine support which was tested extensively. We also had to find out about […]

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