3D Printer Creates New Pelvis

The patient, a man in his 60s who suffered from a rare bone cancer called chondrosarcoma, had half of his pelvis bone removed to stop his cancer from spreading. His surgeon, Craig Gerrand, M.D., a consultant orthopedic surgeon at Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals in Great Britain, explained, “Since this cancer does not respond to drugs or radiotherapy, the only option was to remove half of the pelvis.”

Garrand did some scans to measure exactly how much bone had been removed and then, using a 3D printer, laid down successive layers of titanium powder that was fused together with a laser to create a titanium pelvis. He coated the new pelvis with a mineral into which the remaining bone could grow and then fitted a standard hip replacement into the new socket. The patient is now able to walk with the use of a cane.

Garrand told the Ben Farmer, The Telegraph writer who reported the story, that so much of the patient’s bone needed removing that (without creating the artificial half pelvis) nothing would have been left to which surgeons could attach an implant.

The use of a 3D printer in the operating room is not new. Orthopedic surgeons in Belgium created an entire lower jaw for a patient in 2012 and a bionic ear and tracheas have been made in the same fashion.Doctors believe this is the first pelvis to have been created with a 3D printer using titanium powder.