Layerwise, a specialized metal-parts manufacturer from Belgium, is just now publicizing a transplant carried out last June in which an 83-year-old British woman received a replacement jaw made by the company's 3D printer, a procedure doctors say is the first of its kind, BBC News reports.
The woman underwent the transplant operation in the Netherlands after suffering from osteomyelitis, a chronic bone infection that nearly destroyed her lower jaw and left her unable to chew, speak or breathe, according to New Scientist.
Because of the infection's rapid progress, doctors knew that if they opted to perform a transplant, they would need an artificial implant that could be manufactured at the last minute to accomodate the shape of the woman's face at the time of surgery.
That's when they turned to Layerwise, whose 3D printer is able to design and manufacture implants in fewer than two hours using a process called selective laser melting, which employs high precision lasers to fuse layers of titanium powder.
In the days before the transplant, doctors took an MRI scan of the woman's face to determine the shape of the artificial jawbone and transmitted the information to the 3D printer, which built up the implant layer by layer.
The completed implant was then coated with a bone-substitute ceramic compound and transplanted into the woman during a four hour procedure, New Scientist reports.
The results of the surgery were immediate.
"Shortly after waking up from the anaesthetics the patient spoke a few words, and the day after the patient was able to swallow again," lead surgeon Dr. Jules Poukens said in a Layerwise press release.
Ruben Wauthle, LayerWise's medical applications engineer, told the BBC he believes the transplant is a cautious step toward relying more on 3D printing in the future.
"You can build parts that you can't create using any other technique. For example you can print porous titanium structures which allow bone in-growth and allow a better fixation of the implant, giving it a longer lifetime," Wauthle told the BBC, adding that "There are still big biological and chemical issues to be solved."
Researchers and developers announced the procedure during a Feb. 3 press conference in Belgium. More images and information from the conference are available from the University of Hasselt.
Last November, scientists at Washington State University used a 3D printer to create a scaffold on which new bone cells can grow. In that case, the team used a commercially available ProMetal 3D printer for its tests.