Dubai: Over three-and-a-half years ago, a 22-year-old Dutch woman received the world’s first 3D printed plastic skull transplant that saved her eyesight.
In an email interview with Gulf News, the patient told Gulf News: “My head feels much lighter. I was able to live a normal life after the surgery. I have totally recovered.”
The patient’s name still remains a secret.
Dr Bon Verweij, a neurosurgeon from Netherlands’ University Medical Centre of Utrecht, who created a Guinness record with this skull transplant, will be delivering the keynote address on 3D printing at Arab Health 2018 in Dubai on Monday.
He told Gulf News that he will publish the case in an international medical journal this year.
He feels that it is important to highlight how trauma and cancer patients are increasingly opting for 3D transplants to replace missing portions of their face and cranium.
Providing details of the skull transplant, Dr Verweij said that it was a complex 23-hour surgery.
He and his team first took off the top skin of the patient’s skull, then sawed off the roof and walls, replacing them with the thinner 3D replica.
They fixed the reconstructed skull with plates and screws and sewed the skin back on. In time, the patient’s hair grew back, beating the odds of infection in the transplanted area.
Genetic disorder
Dr Verweij said: “This patient had a rare genetic disorder where her skull wall continued to grow compressing her brain. Her cerebellum was squished, she felt high pressure in the brain that initially began with headaches.
"With time the thickening skull wall was pushing her optic nerve that would have made her go blind. Eventually, if it had pushed on the brain stem she would have stopped breathing.”
Conventional skull transplant models used a kind of cement, which hardened in 10 minutes, making it difficult to mould it around the exact shape of the patient’s head.
“The 3D printing technology enabled us to create a tailor-made model for the patient from her CT scan filling in all the gaps and contours,” Dr Verweij said.
The neurosurgeon replaced 80 per cent of the skull, or its ‘wall and roof’, leaving the part covering the brain stem portion intact. “After the surgery, the remaining portion of the patient’s skull stopped growing, resolving her problem. Earlier, her skull wall was 4cm thick; the 3D pre-fabricated transplant is 1cm thick.”
Reiterating the importance of 3D printing in modern medicine, Dr Verweij who intends to seek collaboration to begin a fully functional 3D printing project in the UAE, said: “3D printing is going to change the world. In Dubai they are coming up with the first 3D printed skyscraper.”
Enumerating its benefits in the field of health care, Dr Verweij said: “It is a perfect example of modern personalised medicine. With the patient’s CT scan, we are able to capture his exact contours and create an exact fit. We are using 3D printing in cranial defects, maxilla facial surgery where cancerous tumours, or road trauma injuries, require excision of parts of a patient’s face. These models are not only functional and perfect fits, but cosmetically speaking restore a patient’s original looks.”
