9 ms·
Getting Closer to Mass Production of Bones, Organs, and Implants
- Tharkun 10y agoAn acquaintance of mine had a part of her skull replaced by a 3D printed part, made by Materialise. While it sounds spectacular, she was out of the hospital in days, none the worse for wear.
- jessriedel 10y agoCould you say more about it? For typical holes left by neurosurgical procedures the 3D printing part may be useful for comfort or cosmetics, but I think it is unlikely to be critically important. Surgeons have been using simple metal plates to patch holes in the skull for many decades, and they work pretty well.
- pinot 10y agoJust based on what they have on their site, no simple metal plate could make the shapes that they do/are working on. http://www.materialise.com/en/medical/patient-specific-implants/patient-specific-cranio-maxillofacial-implants http://www.materialise.com/en/medical/patient-specific-impla...
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Tharkun 10y agoPart of her skull was damaged when she was a child. At the time it was replaced by some kind of plastic. But from what I gather it slowly started to deteriorate, until it got infected and pressure built up and it had to be removed/replaced. From what I can gather it's a piece a little over 10cm in diameter and resides above her ear.
- blazespin 10y agoMetal Plates make MRIs a pain.
- jessriedel 10y agoNo, essentially all modern metal implants are non magnetic, e.g., titanium. They go through MRIs all the time.
- mattkrause 10y agoNo, it's still a pain. Titanium is MR-compatible: the magnet won't rip the plate out of your head, which is good. However, it can cause huge artifacts that obscure things around the titanium implant (and, sometimes, depending on the scan parameters and implant location, elsewhere too). This is particularly annoying because the implants are often right near the areas you really want to image....
- Boothroid 10y agoAirway is mentioned, but this is one of the hardest parts to manufacture. Very little clinical success in this area so far: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-37311038 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-37311038
- Roritharr 10y agoThat is depressing. I remember seeing an episode of Nova Science Now about it and being so amazed at it that I showed that segment to everyone i knew to get them talking about it... Really sad to hear that this is also a "can't have nice things" situation.
- smaili 10y agoHas there been a term coined yet for people with these parts? I don't believe it would be classified as a cyborg since these are not machine-type parts. Although the parts are ironically produced by machines.
- ceejayoz 10y agoSure: transplant recipient.
- Para2016 10y agoBooo! :) What about Synborg or Synthorg? Maybe Pseudosynth.
- epanastasi 10y agoHow about we call them human beings instead of trying to create a label and separate them from the rest of society.
- tpm 10y agowell those are implants rather than transplants.
- agumonkey 10y agorehumans ? organorgs ?
- quickben 10y agoCyborgs? :)
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- JustSomeNobody 10y agoGuinea pig? J/k. I like "biot" that someone else mentioned.
- agumonkey 10y agoarchives: http://archive.is/EC8ph http://archive.is/EC8ph https://app.printfriendly.com/print?source=homepage&url_s=uGGCF_~_PdN_~_PcS_~_PcSJJJmoyBBzorEtmpBz_~_PcSArJF_~_PcSnEGvpyrF_~_PcScabh-ae-ch_~_PcSJr-Er-trGGvAt-pyBFrE-GB-znFF-CEBqHpGvBA-Bs-oBArF-BEtnAF-nAq-vzCynAGF https://app.printfriendly.com/print?source=homepage&url_s=uG...
- systems 10y agowhy aren't teeth implants and crowns getting cheaper because of 3D Printers crowns and teeth implants should be a lot easier than other organs or bones
- maxerickson 10y agoBecause a 3d printer isn't going to be vastly better than a milling machine. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/04/06/dentist-digital-crowns/6267717/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/04/06/dentis... (especially for such a small amount of material, material with a lot of requirements, bio-compatibility, durability, etc)
- sjg007 10y agoNot much competition I would imagine as well as "installation" costs
- ShannonAlther 10y agoIn addition to maxerickson's point, a lot of the bill goes into paying the dental professionals who do the implanting. It's a (minor) surgical procedure.
- chiph 10y agoMy dentist has a jar in his waiting room full of the stems left over from all the crowns he's placed (he uses the CEREC system). No idea why he thinks people would be interested in seeing them while they wait, but I observe that each one represents about $1800 in billing revenue. And there's hundreds of them in there. The material is interesting - it starts off as a lavender color, but after curing in the oven you get a shade which is a close match to your natural tooth color (they have charts/samples to pick a match before the milling is done). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CEREC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CEREC
- kwhitefoot 10y ago> each one represents about $1800 in billing revenue. Do you mean that it costs a patient USD1800 to get a crown? I have two crowns both made and installed at the same dental practice in Drammen, Norway, using, I think, the CEREC system. At one time he had a screen mounted above the couch so that you could see it being shaped while you waited. Including the initial consultation, the crown itself, and the fitting I paid about NOK5000 each. That's about USD580 at today's exchange rate, about USD750 at the rate that was in force when I had them done.
- sbahr001 10y agoHello 6 million dollar man.
- afinlayson 10y agoI'm very excited for this technology. But not as much as hockey players, who would love to be able to have their teeth replaced.
- ricardobeat 10y ago> Ten-year old Organovo [...] has received more than $100 million in funding I couldn't help but think of Juicero's $120m to design a flat mechanical press. (yes, supply chain etc, but still...)
- milquetoastaf 10y agoUh except Organovo is trying to solve a much harder problem and has been around for a while AND has proven success? What point are you trying to make besides superficial snark because some funding numbers quoted in the article are similar?
- yequalsx 10y agoI think ricardobeat is pointing out that it says something about the current VC climate that something as dumb as Juiecero got $20 million more funding than something as potentially important as Organivo.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- throwaway6556 10y agoAre you an idiot? What he's implying is that a company selling juicers for the rich is able to raise as much as a company making human organs, which is fucking ridiculous.
- dang 10y agoWe've banned this account for violating the site guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14221051 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14221051 and marked it off-topic.
- lallysingh 10y agoI wonder if they'll be able to produce some of these parts in-place, inside the body, as part of the surgery. Otherwise, some parts may be too hard to implant.
- devrandomguy 10y ago"Who: Engineering Ph.D. dropout ..." In other words, an ordinary professional engineer, who considered extending his formal education? Bit of a gaffe, there.
- crusso 10y ago"getting closer"... that's not much to go on. If you read the article skeptically, there isn't any news here - nothing that hasn't been reported prior to the last 2 or 3 years. The big news will be when we can fabricate complex organs, significant patches of skin with features like hair follicles or fingerprints, etc. Notice that even the liver reference was just some liver tissue that was implanted in a mouse - not an actual liver or a human trial.
- dghughes 10y agoI've read about coral being used as temporary structure for bone replacment but eventually the patient's own bone takes over replacing it. You'd think a liver would be the easiest organ to grow since in adults a liver can regrow from a healthy piece. That's why you sometimes read about people donating part of their liver. I think there will always be one big problem and that's the health of the patient. People who need a new organ are so sick they probably won't survive the operation to get a new organ. Anesthetic is like a controlled drug overdose but add age and poor health I can't imagine being an anesthesiologist that's one tough job!
- sslalready 10y agoIt doesn't regrow the (larger) blood vessels and doesn't maintain the original structure. A liver is essentially two halves with two separate, large blood vessels.
- rebelwebmaster 10y agoI had figured that once organ replacement becomes a more viable action to take, it could be done much earlier before the patient's health has had a chance to deteriorate as significantly.