3-D Created Implants Gaining Ground

Amit Lahav, M. D. of Orthopedic Health in Milford, Connecticut, is making his own knee replacements through 3-D printing. He told Nicole Nalepa, a reporter for Eye Witness News, that he tells his patients about the 3-D printed joint, “The knee is made to fit you. We do not have to fit a knee to you.”

He begins with a CAT scan of the patient’s knee and ankle and transfers that information to the 3-D printer. Using cobalt-chrome and a polyethylene plastic, the machine creates the implant as well as the cutting blocks used to guide the surgeon in his cutting.

Nalepa quoted Lahav as saying “It’s a thinner type of prosthesis and it’s less invasive as well. We don’t use any big instrumentation that goes up and down the canals.” Nalepa reported that patients are up and walking the first day of surgery and go home in three days.

She added that the costs are similar to standard joint replacements and most insurance companies are covering it. Lahav said that the 3-D created knee is sized perfectly for the patient’s anatomy as compared to “off the shelf” models.

Dr. Lahav is an engineer by training having earned his bachelor’s degree in Engineering from Cooper Union. Dr. Lahav graduated from New York’s prestigious Mount Sinai School of Medicine in 1998 and served as Chief Resident in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Stony Brook University Medical Center. He also completed two fellowships at the University of Utah, Orthopedic Sports Medicine/Arthroscopy and Adult Joint Reconstruction Surgery. He served as a visiting instructor at the University of Utah and an attending staff member in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at the Salt Lake City Veterans Administration Medical Center.