Materialise : Point-of-Care 3D Printing Lab in India Enables Access to Personalized Treatment

Outsourcing Medical 3D Printing to other healthcare institutions

Apart from plastic surgery, the Point-of-Care 3D Printing lab has also attracted interest from other departments, such as orthopaedics, neurosurgery, cardiology, oncology, pulmonology and even obstetrics and gynaecology. In addition, the services of the Point-of-Care 3D Printing lab are not only limited to Max Saket, but have also been opened to all Max hospitals across Delhi with great response.

An example of this is a case of mandible reconstruction using a free flap fibula, performed by Dr. Pawan Gupta and Dr. Vipin Barthwal at Max Vaishali. The patient had a mandible tumour, which needed to be excised and reconstructed with the fibula bone. This is a challenging procedure, as it requires removal of the mandible region and then accurately reconstructing it with the correct length and shape of the fibula bone, achieving correct aesthetic and functional output.

In this case, an anatomical model of the defect mandible and the fibula was 3D printed to give the surgeons a better visualization. The surgery was then simulated on Materialise Mimics Medical software, including resecting the defect region of the mandible, mirroring the healthy anatomy to guide in reconstruction, and osteotomy of the fibula to fit the reconstruction region precisely. Based on this, personalized cutting guides were designed to guide the surgeons in achieving the pre-planned cuts in the operation theatre. This helped them resect the mandible tumor with ease and perform a precise osteotomy of the fibula to fit the resected portion of the mandible well. The surgeons were very pleased with the result, having achieved the correct shape of the mandible, with both aesthetic and functional output. The surgeons also mentioned that this helped reduce surgery time by almost 2 hours.