
Baby's life saved with 3-D printed device that restored his breathing - rosser
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130522180102.htm
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jtchang
The thing a lot of people don't get about 3d printing right now is that it is
still in its infancy. We are basically at the point where cell phones were the
size of bricks. Give it a decade or two and we might look at 3d printers and
their current price / resolution as laughable.

I truly hope we hear more stories of hospitals acquiring 3d printer technology
so it becomes as ubiquitous as an MRI.

~~~
slacka
The thing a lot of people don't get about 3D printing is that it has been
around since the early 80s. And unlike semiconductors which follow Moore's
Law, not much has changed in the past 30 years except some of the earlier
patents have expired. So the printers good for printing cheap plastic junk,
like figurines, now only cost about $1K.

SOURCE: My company has been using $1-500K 3D printers for the past 15 years.

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lucb1e
Am I the only one who's not all that surprised or inspired by this? We know we
can print arbitrary 3d objects of different sorts of plastics, so if any human
being needs something of that kind we can print it. That it saves a life is a
cool and inspiring coincidence for sure, just like I was amazed when I heard
about bad software causing _deaths_ of real people, but it's not like any
conventional tool couldn't have done the same.

~~~
Udo
As bad as it may sound, it's remarkable that there are medical teams out there
who employ "new" techniques such as 3D printing. It may be an old hat for us,
but the medical community has always been a little ...reluctant when it comes
to applying new technologies.

I can't imagine the people I went to medical school with considering or even
knowing about such a thing, if it hasn't already been well-established. Also,
there is an amazing amount of modeling that went into this particular piece.
It's not just a matter of printing out a structure, it also has to fit the
patient - and in this case it was a fairly complicated shape.

~~~
Retric
Medicine has been using 3d printing for well over a decade. The most common
being invisiline which is a significant improvement over braces. But, also
bone replacements as well as soft tissue.

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japhyr
I teach 3d modeling in my math classes, and I'm going to share this with
students tomorrow. This is absolutely inspiring.

~~~
neovive
It's great to hear that you're teaching 3d modeling. This is going to be a
valuable skill for your students.

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barbs
This ScienceDaily website badly needs a re-design. Over two-thirds of this
page is smothered in related articles, social network buttons, ads, other
news, banners etc. Ridiculous!

Otherwise, this was a nice article to read.

~~~
ryusage
The article itself is actually just being reprinted from U of M's own site,
which is much less ad-congested and even includes video. Would've been a much
better choice for OP to post.

[http://www.uofmhealth.org/news/archive/201305/baby%E2%80%99s...](http://www.uofmhealth.org/news/archive/201305/baby%E2%80%99s-life-
saved-groundbreaking-3d-printed-device)

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Wingman4l7
There was a TEDx talk in 2011 covering a very similar innovation: a custom-
made "corset" for his ascending aorta, built using CT imaging, CAD modeling
and "rapid prototyping" _(which I suspect was 3D printing)_.

[http://www.ted.com/talks/tal_golesworthy_how_i_repaired_my_o...](http://www.ted.com/talks/tal_golesworthy_how_i_repaired_my_own_heart.html)

~~~
toomuchtodo
I look forward to having each part of my body rebuilt from scratch as I age.
Death? Not in this century.

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benawabe896
What a truly wonderful technology this is.

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kronholm
We'll be living off printed meat as well, in a decade or two:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waro4LJDZvU> (Solve for X: Andras Forgacs on
sustainable, scalable meat)

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scrapcode
This almost brought joyous tears to my eyes. Through the muddy waters of the
negative media shines hope! Why can't things of this nature catch traction
more often?

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wfunction
Here we have a piece of technology achieving nothing short of miracles, saving
people's lives.

And yet, I can't believe some idiots look at this technology and the best use
case they think of is: "hey, this sounds _awesome_ \-- let's print guns!"

~~~
noonespecial
If its not good enough to print guns, its not good enough to do much of
anything useful.

Rocks: You can bash skulls or build cathedrals. Do both and we call it human.

~~~
lessnonymous
And we used rocks as weapons before we used them for building. (Ignoring
naturally forming caves).

We know media technology is led by the porn industry. Maybe physical
technology is led by the weapons industry.

~~~
Ygg2
Ironic, because weapons industry has a lot of incentives to stop this
development.

~~~
CodeCube
I think that's probably better phrased as, "the _existing_ weapons industry
has a lot of incentives to stop this development". Just because someone like
defense distributed isn't an established arms manufacturer doesn't mean they
aren't "in the industry". Same goes for other startups. The "payment industry"
seems to have been greatly affected by an upstart named paypal. The "finance
industry" probably doesn't like kickstarter very much. etc.

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akulbe
What I don't get is why is this just coming to light now? In the article it
says that this happened February 9, 2012. It's been over a year since this
happened why are we just hearing about it now?

~~~
apl
Well, it was published in the NEJM today:

<http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc1206319>

Academia moves slowly. You want to make sure that your innovation actually had
a net positive effect (does the patient actually survive?), you need
clearances, you need to do the write-up, the journal needs publication space;
honestly, I'm surprised that it's just a year. Novel techniques are attempted
every day. You don't hear about them instantaneously because a majority of
them don't work.

~~~
akulbe
I never thought about the peer-review aspect of this. Good point. Thank you
for reminding me. :)

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LAMike
Awesome story, 3D printing is awesome!

Wouldn't it last longer if it was made out of metal? or would it just rust?

~~~
Cogito
They don't want it to last longer, that is one of the reasons they chose this
specific biopolymer.

The splint provides a structure for the airways to grow in/around/within,
making sure they don't collapse in the meantime. Once the airways are properly
developed the splint is no longer required.

From the article:

 _"The material we used is a nice choice for this. It takes about two to three
years for the trachea to remodel and grow into a healthy state, and that's
about how long this material will take to dissolve into the body," says
Hollister._

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biswajitsharma
Today I feel, Technology Seriously Arrived!! If I die today, I will die happy!

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rikacomet
I wonder if something similar would be made for eye-sight correction. Most of
nearsightedness, and farsightedness cases are caused by irregular size of
cornea.

A 3D generated cushion from the outside, would be able to perhaps make a
groundbreaking change in eye care services.

the muscles will eat into the cushion, in 2-3 years, enough for eyes to get
rehabilitated and re-accustomed to the shape.

Imagine a future, without specs! No laser surgery, that cost hundreds and
thousands of dollars.

~~~
Lewton
honestly, that sounds way more invasive and complicated than laser surgery. It
could potentially fix some problems laser surgery can't though

