3D-printed ribs: a life saver

In a first surgery of its kind, a 54 year old Spanish patient having chest wall sarcoma (a type of cancer that grows in and around the rib cage) successfully received a 3D-printed titanium sternum and rib implant. He has recovered well and sent home.

The patient was operated in Spain’s Salamanca University Hospital but the fully customizable titanium implant of the sternum was designed and manufactured in a lab in a Melbourne-based medical device company Anatomics in Australia, utilizing 3D printing facility, Lab 22.

Said Dr. Jose Aranda, who was a part of the surgical team, ‘we thought of creating a new type of implant that we could fully customize to replicate the intricate structures of the sternum and the ribs’.

Written by: Dr. Ajay Sati.