Slashdot Mirror
Two South African Cancer Patients Receive 3D Printed Titanium Jaw Implants
jigmypig (3675225) writes "Two patients in South Africa that have had their lives and more specifically their jaws severely affected by cancer, have just received 3D printed jaw implants. The jaws were 3D printed using a laser sintering process that melts powdered titanium, one layer at a time. The process saves a ton of money, and unlike traditional manufacturing of titanium jaws, it doesn't waste any materials. Traditional manufacturing wastes up to 80% of the titanium block used in the process, whereas with 3D printing there is little to no waste at all. This new process also allows for a fully customizable solution. The models are drawn up in CAD software, and then printed out to precisely fit the patient."
You had me at "3D Printed Titanium Jaw Implants". Awesome!
- Henrik
- when the Shadows descend -
No, actually, I'm fortunate enough not to have that option. Still, it's good to see this happening for the people who do.
I'm sure the "waste" is recycled. While I'm happy for the advancement I think people stretch a bit too much to make something seem more revolutionary than it is. That doesn't benefit anyone.
Cast is bad enough, but sintering is awful for strength. Horrible.
If it's FINE enough it should be, er.. fine. I wonder what the fail test is like for this being an orthopedic application, or is that even considered beyond "it's metal"?
They wasted a very valuable opportunity here. The jaws do not have razor sharp jagged teeth nor are either of the recipients over 7 feet tall.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
While I find the 3d printing damn cool, the editorializing about the waste struck me as an odd comment for subby to make. I'm guessing that a lot of powder gets left over by this new process just as milling from a solid block leaves shavings. But those should be just as easily melted down and recycled in the next job, so not really wasted. (And if they are thrown away, it means that reusing them just isn't economical, so the 'waste' isn't that valuable anyway.)
I think the better argument where 3D wins is the ability to get arbitrary shapes that could be impossible to make with traditional machining or casting.
"You saved 1968." - Ms. Valerie Pringle to the crew of Apollo 8
When they say 3D printed do they mean a metal mill, or can we 3D print with any random material now?
And if so, why not use the far more tried tested, and better alternative milling?
Nope, it's "laser sintering." They take metal powder and fuse it together one layer at a time. You put a layer of metal powder down, the laser fuses it together, then you put another layer of powder over it. Repeat until done.
The nice thing is all the waste powder can be reused without having to melt it down, so there's almost no waste. The other thing is you can print shapes that are really hard to mill. No more ridiculously complex 6 axes milling machines that the US treats like munitions. Just Google ITER sometime to see the craziness.
So lets pretend that we've just completed writing this code, as opposed to having just completed sabotaging it -Altera
The nice thing is all the waste powder can be reused without having to melt it down, so there's almost no waste.
How big of an advantage is that, though? Melting down metal to reuse it is really easy, much easier than with other materials like glass or plastics. Especially in the case where you control the environment and can be assured of its purity, vs. collecting scrap metal or something (but even collecting scrap metal is profitable).
Well, it's Titanium, so it's probably quite a pain. Titanium has an ignition temperature that's lower than its melting point so you have to work with it in an inert atmosphere, and apparently it's still a pain even then. Given that I'll bet titanium scrap isn't worth a quarter of its value when in block form.
The article says "each surgery cost just 20% of what a traditional jaw implant surgery would have cost." It doesn't say how much of that was due to not having to recycle 80% of the material and how much of it was because the jaw was made to order. It certainly implied though that a decent bit of the savings was due to laser sinstering.
You're also forgetting the cost of the multi axis milling machines that this process replaces. If they're even close in price and you're using 80% less material then why wouldn't any manufacturing shop go for it?
So lets pretend that we've just completed writing this code, as opposed to having just completed sabotaging it -Altera
Hello,
It might help. You could probably start by contacting the reporter who wrote the article, or the hospitals at which the surgeries were performed to ask for more information.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Dexter is a good dog.
I'm so disappointed that you posted as AC.
I wanted to tell you that you suck.
You suck.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
It has to be as durable as the bone it is fitted into. Titanium is used in prosthetics because it is the most biocompatible metal, not so much for it's hardness.
You wrote a book and can't tell affect from effect?
Mostly random stuff.
If I remember this correctly, sintering is actually one of the favoured manufacturing methods for implants. Something about how you can make the material surfaces porous enough for tissue to hold on to, which traditional machining simply cannot match.
I've no doubt that sintered parts have undergone failure testing and found acceptable. Do you know the level of regulation for a medical implant? It's insane.
Do you know the level of regulation for a medical implant? It's insane.
If you have received a sintered jaw in the last 5 years and have experienced headaches, nausea, aches, pains, shortness of breathe, loose stool, fungus, rashes, upset stomach, or death, call 1800-876-9876 to get the money you deserve
I finally updated my sig, but now it's lame.
It's porous but that actually helps with incorporation into the body. I'm a bit out of touch now but in 1999 experiments with implanting porous titanium implants treated in caustic soda into mice resulted in very strong metal to bone connections after only a few weeks.
So while it's horrible strength compared with solid titanium outside the body it's very likely to be higher strength inside the body than a solid implant.
Besides, bone is not very strong in comparison to titanium - which actually has been a problem with metal joints for years since the metal grinds away at the bone it is inserted into. Typically that's why metal joints have been replaced - the metal bits are fine but the bone they are connected to has worn down and a longer joint is required.
It's not easy to reclaim (titanium oxidises very easily so the scrap has to be reduced again, almost as hard as getting it out of sand in the first place) and the consumable costs to machine it are not trivial. Your cutting tools are ripping into titanium oxide, and guess what a lot of the cutting edges of those tools are made of? You can't guess? The answer is stuff like titanium nitride which is not a lot harder, so the tools wear down very rapidly. Using diamond doesn't help much either. It's a very slow and expensive way to do things but used to be better than any other way available.
This development is interesting because now it is available it's a lot easier than your "just mill it out of a block" suggestion which is why it's being discussed at all.
The milled stuff has been treated for years to produce a porous surface to allow bone to grow into it. I heard a paper presented on that in 1999 by some Japanese and Californian researchers and it's apparently become standard practice since.
I was seriously wondering that myself since titanium is difficult to deal with despite the fact that aerospace engineers would like to use it for a large number of parts, so I did a quick Google and I found this:
"Tests by EOS customers have compared the properties of laser-sintered titanium parts to those of cast or wrought titanium parts, and found that the DMLS parts can have significantly better mechanical properties. Typically, titanium parts made with DMLS have an ultimate tensile strength of 1,200Mpa + 30Mpa (175ksi + 4ksi), comparable to or stronger than conventionally manufactured titanium components"
Now, that should be taken with a grain of salt since it was provided by a company that does Direct Metal Laser Sintering, but it certainly sounds damn good.
Just be careful, you have to use low oxygen contents in the powder itself and argon to work in since it is HIGHLY reactive in its molten state.
I'm sure it is hysterically expensive right now, but has huge potential since traditional titanium work is both hard on machines/tool and requires lots of cooling.
Very, very cool.
Loading...