How 3D-printed throat implants saved three babies

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck
Three US newborns were facing certain death due to a condition called tracheobronchomalacia until researchers from the Universities of Michigan, Utah, and Pittsburgh were able to save their lives with three-dimensional printed throat implants.
According to Science, the condition causes an infant’s windpipe to periodically collapse, making it so that the child can’t breathe. The condition would have almost certainly killed the trio of children, Kaiba, Garrett, and Ian, had doctors and additive manufacturing not stepped in.
Tracheobronchomalacia (TBM) typically leads to respiratory failure, an inability to absorb food, and even cardiac arrest, the website explained. However, doctors took CT scans to determine the size and shape of each boy’s trachea, and then used those images to create computer models of tube-shaped hollow plastic splints. These models were then created using 3D printing technology.
In their paper, the authors explained that TBM “can lead to life-threatening cardiopulmonary arrests,” and that to address the ailment, they used an additive manufacturing technique known as laser sintering in which a laser melted particles of powdered plastic to create a new structure.
Life-saving, biodegradable external airway splints
“We demonstrate the successful application of 3D printing technology to produce a personalized medical device for treatment of TBM, designed to accommodate airway growth while preventing external compression over a predetermined time period before bioresorption,” they wrote. “We implanted patient-specific 3D-printed external airway splints in three infants with severe TBM.”
“At the time of publication, these infants no longer exhibited life-threatening airway disease, and had demonstrated resolution of both pulmonary and extrapulmonary complications.” The researchers added that long-term data collected over the years had shown “continued growth of the primary airways” in all three of the infants.
Science noted that the implants were designed to not only be flexible, but to also allow the airways to move and stretch slowly to match the growth of the windpipes. The implants were made from a polymer called polycaprolactone, which biodegrades over the course of three to four years when exposed to bodily fluids, the website reported.
The implants were wrapped around the damaged tracheas of the children, and then sewed in place to keep the airways open. The results were so effective that each youngster was able to come off of ventilation devices, leave intensive care, and make their way home. The boys are known between 17 months and three years old, and by the time their splints fully dissolve, doctors expect their windpipes to be developed enough to continue growing and functionally normally.
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