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Man Saves Wife's Sight By 3D Printing Her Tumor
An anonymous reader writes: Michael Balzer, a former software engineer and Air Force technical instructor, found himself unsatisfied with a doctor's diagnosis of a small tumor behind his wife's left eye. Balzer had recently become proficient at creating 3D models, so he asked the doctor for the raw medical imaging data and took a look himself. In addition to correcting a later misdiagnosis, Balzer 3D printed models of his wife's cranium and helped neurosurgeons plan a procedure to remove the tumor, instead of waiting to see how it developed, like previous doctors had recommended. During the procedure, surgeons found the tumor was beginning to entangle her optic nerve, and even a six-month wait would have had dire consequences for her eyesight.
Medical researchers like Dr. Michael Patton believe this sort of prototyping will become "the new normal" in a very short time. He says, "What you can now do through 3D printing is like what you're able to do in the software world: Rapid iteration, fail fast, get something to market quickly. You can print the prototypes, and then you can print out model organs on which to test the products. You can potentially obviate the need for some animal studies, and you can do this proof of concept before extensive patient trials are conducted.
Medical researchers like Dr. Michael Patton believe this sort of prototyping will become "the new normal" in a very short time. He says, "What you can now do through 3D printing is like what you're able to do in the software world: Rapid iteration, fail fast, get something to market quickly. You can print the prototypes, and then you can print out model organs on which to test the products. You can potentially obviate the need for some animal studies, and you can do this proof of concept before extensive patient trials are conducted.
Most medical imaging equipment will dump out a DICOM file, which, IIRC, can be translated into the more typical 3D formats. So pretty much everybody that gets a CT or MRI could get the data. Then you just have to set up the printer.
I could see this as a growth industry for hospitals (hey, we need the money) - instead of getting some miserable little CD with your image, you get a plastic skeleton (or plastic squishy part). Coffee table discussion item or new D&D figurine?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I'm not a vet student, but I did spend a night helping one study the sinuses of a large animal (they split in to large animal (farm) and small animal (pet) specialties) and some of the learning materials are a little difficult to wrap your brain around, in particular how the sinuses (voids in the skull) exist inside the skull, how they connect (or don't) and simply where they are. The brain has enough trouble understanding negative spaces, even more trouble trying to conceptualize the winding, twisting 3D negative spaces you can't ever directly view without cutting apart a skull to do so. Even then doing so only gives you half the picture, and in negative space.
There are some videos online showing the sinuses in "positive 3D space" but it's still only a reference (Everyone is different) so I would imagine having a 3D positive space model of a tumor you've never seen and can't see without cutting open someone's head would be incredibly helpful, especially since you can't just buy off the shelf reference material for human tumors like you can bovine sinuses.
moox. for a new generation.
It sounds to me like the actual 3d printing was less important than the 3d model. I'm not sure what the first doctor's problem was. Usually an MRI gives you a detailed model that you can look at from multiple angles. You don't just measure the size from one point of view. That doesn't even make sense.
Not concerned at all, he helped them to develop and use a tool they didn't understand how to use and didn't have access to previously. It's how progress is really made. Experts from two different fields find a way to work together to solve problems that neither could solve independently.
Not being constrained by traditional things, having skin in the game, and having a skillset which differs from what the doctors do -- all of these combine for him to take a whack at it in a way they'd never think of.
If anything, this highlights how a breakthrough can come from an outsider.
And I bet all of a sudden a lot of medical people are saying "wait, he did what?" and "where can I get one?".
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
No surprise here. I've recently had to deal with doctors of various kinds, and found many (though not all) to be myopic, stubborn and deeply conservative, reluctant to consult outside their own area of expertise, prone to seek the cause of unknowns outside their own area of expertise ("It's not X, go see a specialist for Y"), and having a disturbing lack of curiosity. Maybe I expect too much of them, but doctors act a lot more like technicians than scientists or researchers. There was an article (in the Economist I believe) about health care being one of the least innovative disciplines. The science of medicine has progressed, but there's been relatively little progress in the way we diagnose and treat patients. Some doctor proudly spoke about how they now employ checklists similar to those being used by pilots, to reduce errors in surgery. A great innovation... which they could have known about and implemented about 50 years ago.
There are plenty of examples of desperate patients nudging their doctors in the right direction after doing some self-diagnosis and research online. There are also some examples of extraordinary breakthroughs in medical science made by engineers with no medical background.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
this entire story is nonsense, speaking as a qualified medical physicist in radiotherapy with decades of experience. First of all, for him to make a 3D model of a tumour, he is having to decide based on CT and/or MRI data what is or isnt the tumour, which by the way you might have noticed is the same information from the CT and/or MR scan that qualified radiologists and oncologists look at, and using treatment diagnosis and planning software (including auto segmentation techniques). So unless this guy suddenly read a book one night and became a fucking oncologist, he didnt pick out SHIT from a CT data set that a qualified oncologist "missed". Nor did he tell surgeons "how to get at" the tumour in a way that implies that was the holdup, like he figured it out while people who work with this for decades didnt get it.
ah now wait a minute, halfway down the article
"So although the first doctors told them to wait, Balzer and Scott sent the MRI results to a handful of neurologists around the country. Nearly all of them agreed that Scott needed surgery."
correct. OTHER QUALIFIED DOCTORS diagnosed the issue. Not some fucking clown with a 3D printer.
"The tumor had grown substantially, which indicated a far more grave condition than was initially diagnosed. But back at home, Balzer used Photoshop to layer the new DICOM files on top of the old images, and realized that the tumor hadn’t grown at all — the radiologist had just measured from a different point on the image."
this makes no sense at all and has either been misreported, or he went to a pretend hospital staffed by retards. NO INFORMATiON WHATSOEVER came to light from a 3D printed model of the SAME FUCKING DATA thats in the image. If someone measured wrong on a scan thats an error, just go back and review the images, or send them off again for a 2nd opinion rather than waste your time printing a fucking useless model
he sent a 3d model /image round when instead all he had to do was send the SOURCE DICOM files to these other doctors, which would have resulted in the exact same solution.
Fuck, every single time you see a story in your own field and realise its utter bullshit, you realise that ALL stories must be fucking bullshit, its just that you cant check up on stuff youre not involved with so easily
Doctors make no profit out of difficult diagnoses. They have a business to run. They're a mill. Get 'em in. Get 'em out. If it looks like something even slightly nonstandard, shove them off to another specialist so that they can bear the cost, and liability. That neurologist isn't going to bother to read the journals, or keep up with technology, or make any extra effort at all. He's got 25 other people to see today and he's already running late and there's a hiring meeting in 20 minutes because the single good support employee his practice has is threatening to quit, and there's another meeting with the lawyer this afternoon about the tumors he missed because he was just too rushed that day.
Socialized medicine has its own problems, but at least you can get a doctor focused on medicine.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
but doctors act a lot more like technicians than scientists or researchers.
Doctors are much more like technicians. You don't want doctors "experimenting" on you unless you really, really need that. Physicians are typically not brought up in a 'science' environment (question assumptions, learning how to research a topic, critical thinking.) Doctors are brought up in 'cram mode'. Dump a lot of into down your throat. You're expected to believe it. They are increasingly taught to 'follow the protocol' which amazingly, is what technicians do.
Yes, there are 'physician scientists' but they aren't treating the majority of patients and you don't want them to be ('hey that looks interesting, what happens when I tug on it?').
This case is interesting as the husband of the patient kicked the docs out of 'technician' mode. And, of course, used a 3D printer.
ALWAYS ask your doc questions about stuff you don't understand.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Not at all. A technically minded person who's entire career is solving problems throws several hundred hours at solving a problem vs a doctor who is allotted 2-6 hours to solve the same problem and has a hundred other patients who are clamoring for his time. Which do you think would solve a complex problem?
I encounter it every day as a professional engineer who designs buildings. I get $600 (about 4 hours of time) to solve the entire wind and seismic resisting system on a small building and if you decide the entire first floor will be all glass I'll tell you you can't do it. If you're an engineer (but not necessarily a structural one) and decide to design a system yourself and you spend 400 hours on it there's a good chance you'll come up with a solution. For $40,000 in your time, you've solved problem worth $600 on the open market.
And, FWIW, I can solve that kind of problem in under 40 hours - maybe $6000 - but if you offer me $600 to solve the problem, I'm going to tell you that it can't be done [for that money].
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?