a 3-d-printed airway splint cures babies, then disappears
by:Tuowei2019-08-29
At the University of Michigan, printers spit out both problem sets and semester papers. There is now a medical device that makes biodegradable, allowing babies with potentially fatal diseases to grow and live a normal life. This new device is called a gas track splint. It is designed to support tiny airways near the lungs that are prone to collapse in patients with trachea-pulmonary softening. So far, this medical implant has been tested in 3 children between 3 months and 16 months. Young patients spend most of their time in the intensive care unit before implantation, where they need to make full use of the ventilator It\'s time to help them breathe. But, according to a study published this week in the journal Science Translational Medicine, after surgeons inserted small white devices around narrow airways, all three quickly recovered. The doctor said: \"The holidays are no longer spent in the hospital, the children are no longer calm and paralyzed . \" Glen Green, an expert in children\'s ENT at the UniversityS. Mott Children\'s Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Is also one of the senior authors of the study. In the last few years, 3- D The printer expands the possibility of doctors and patients. The printer can customize the blueprint and the right combination of ingredients to make samples of fake hands, ears, and even liver, kidneys and other tissues. But the airway splints are the first 3D implants made for children, designed to grow with patients. \"We use lasers to turn dust into medical devices that change the way the body develops,\" said Green . \". \"It would be incredible when I was a 1990 resident \". Every inch or so The long device looks like a small ridge tube with gaps such as a fence and an opening that extends along the bottom. It is made of polyhexone, a polyester that breaks down safely in the body after three years, giving or spending six months. The cuff- Just as the equipment is outside the collapsed part of the childish road, this part is as thin as the lead in the pencil. During the procedure, the tiny suture connects it to the wall of the damaged airway. In order to make separate splints, the researchers made three using CT scans A 3D digital model of the patient\'s collapsed airway. Then the computer program of the splint was designed according to the specific anatomical structure of the patient. Before printing the device, the researchers installed the virtual splints on the patient\'s virtual gas track to test the current and future work of the splints. \"With the development of the airline, the device is designed to be flexible,\" said Scott Hollister, a biomedical engineer who designed the device at the University of Michigan. The splints stretch out as the airway becomes larger. Over time, he says, it will degrade until it is finally absorbed by the body, just like biodegradable stitching. To help imagine how it works, try to grab your left wrist with your right hand. Now imagine your left wrist getting thicker and thicker. Like it, the tip of the right hand finger is pulled away from the thumb. The same thing happens with splints. After the device has passed the virtual test, it uses 3- D. laser printer, before the exact copy of the virtual model is completed, deposits polyhexone in a thin layer. The team says the process is both efficient and economical. It takes only a few hours for each device to print out, and the production cost is about $10. The medical team can also use 3- Print to make a physical model of the patient\'s trachea and trachea. In this way, the surgeon can practice fine insertion before performing the actual surgery on the child. As patients grow, the cartilage around their airway becomes stronger, which greatly reduces the risk of collapse. Children are usually more likely to surpass those of the trachea-branch bronchitis at the age of 3. \"If the children perform well at the age of 3, then we expect them to perform well in the future,\" Green said . \". \"At this point, the airway has sufficient structural integrity. \"The key, however, is to make children with the most serious diseases live that long. Green said that before the necessary paperwork was completed, some children considered to participate in the pilot trial died. Researchers say a plan for a large clinical trial involving 30 patients is in progress. Dr. Adnan Majid, a surgeon at Beth Israel ess Medical Center, who did not participate in the study, said the results of the pilot trial were promising. \"We do surgery every day, including stent and trachea repair, but there is a problem with each stent,\" he said . \". \"They can migrate when they are not fully fit, or the patient\'s body refuses them. What 3D printing brings us is the ability to customize patient care and prevent these complications. \"In the future, researchers say, in 3- D printers can be used for the treatment of stomach, orthopedics or cardiovascular diseases in children. \"With patient- With specific computer design and modeling, you can create anything you can imagine and eventually become a medical device. Robert Morrison, a head and neck surgeon at the University of Michigan, was involved in the trial. ------------ For RECORDA, the previous version of this post does not include the full name and description of Dr Robert Morrison------------