Home
D&D
Music
Banner Archive

Marvel Comics Timeline
Godzilla Timeline


RSS

   

« SuperMegaSpeed Reviews | Main | Everything is Flowers for Algernon to Me »

3-D Printed Replacement Skull

Time for some link blogging. If you thought the concept of 3-D printers was kewl before when people were using it to print out parts they needed for home repairs and the like, this is going to impress you even more.

Link

Surgeons have replaced 75 percent of a man's skull with a custom-designed polymer cranium constructed with a 3-D printer. The surgery took place on March 4 and is the first U.S. case following the FDA's approval of the implants last month.
...
Technicians used CT scans to get images of the part of the skull that needed replacing. Then, with computer software and input from surgeons, engineers designed the replacement part.
...
Such implants have value as a brain-protecting material, says Jeremy Mao, a biomedical engineer and codirector of Columbia University's center for craniofacial regeneration. But doctors will need to keep an eye out for long-term problems; The skull isn't just a box for the brain but a complicated piece of anatomy linked to connective and soft tissues.

By min | March 19, 2013, 1:42 PM | Science