Chinese Girl Receives Full Skull Reconstruction Via 3D Printing

ErnieKey writes: Doctors in China have just successfully performed a groundbreaking surgery on a 3-year-old little girl named Han Han. Han Han was suffering from congenital hydrocephalus which caused her head to grow to four times the normal size. If something wasn't done, she probably wouldn't have lived much longer. This is when surgeons at the Second People's Hospital of Hunan Province elected to remove a large portion of her skull and replace it with a 3d printed titanium mesh skull. The results were truly amazing, and Han Han is expected to make a full recovery.

Comments

Thursday

[zamboni1138]

Okay, so, first off.. Slashdot was broken all day, without explanation. My power went out at 1:52 this morning, perhaps related, perhaps not.

Second, they replaced her entire skull with a "3d printed titanium mesh skull", and she is "expected to make a full recovery"? What happens when this 3-year-old girl starts to grow?

As she continues to grow, the titanium implants will become surrounded by her own bone, which will lead to the strengthening of the top of her skull.

Yeah, but are they going to stretch and grow with the bone? Nobody appears to ask or know.

Re:Thursday

[Irate Engineer]

The image shows the implant which appears to have gaps resembling skull sutures. It does look like this implant will permit growth of the cranium.

Re:Thursday

[Dutch Gun]

I think human heads grow a bit slower than other parts of the body. A child's skull is proportionally larger to their body than an adult's. So I'd guess that works in her favor. From what I could see in the pictures and according to the article, the skull top was not build in one piece, but three disconnected pieces. I think the idea is that as she grows, it will expand, and the spaces between the pieces will be filled in with her own bone structure.

As imperfect a solution as this may be, what's the alternative here? Apparently, pretty much just death. I hope things go well for her.

Re: Thursday

[Anonymous Coward]

PR move? A child is alive because of a medical first. Fuck your anti-chinese bias.

Re:Thursday

[dave420]

Well, as your guess is worth absolutely nothing, thanks for sharing!

In the US she would have been denied surgery by her insurance companies, so there is that.

Re:Thursday

[tomxor]

But if you look close, its shape is nothing like a normal cranium.

I was wondering about the odd shape too... but then i thought, she's pretty young and the implant will have to work when her head and brain grow to adult size too, so perhaps they stuck a balance between an adaptive 3 part structure and projected adult size. It's more important that here cranium is the right shape when she is older, you wouldn't exactly want multiple skull transplants, that would be like the old pacemakers but massively worse.

Re:Thursday

[towermac]

Don't go there man. The parents had to raise the money, just like they would have had to do here.

Not that I mean to imply that we are not oppressed by the insurance companies, of course we are.

But the fact that something like this costs money is unrelated to that.

Re:Thursday

[Irate Engineer]

My guess is that they did it as a last resort + PR move, without really doing the engineering "custom design" work that would have been done in places like, say, the U.S.

Yeah, of course! There are hundreds of designers that can automagically conjur up a 3d titanium skull implant that will make the patient an adult model for eyebrow weaves, because publicity!

Actually, fuck no; you're an idiot at best, and a misanthrope at worst. Did you perhaps think that maybe a bunch of people with relatively little experience in building fucking craniums did the best they could under the circumstances in order to give this little girl a chance at life extending into adulthood?

My money is that you didn't give a flying fuck. I'm glad you're not my neighbor as I'd have to burn you house down because living next to someone so absolutely hateful would be worse than the prison term for arson. Fuck you and have a bad day, please.

Re: Thursday

[Jane Q. Public]

It wasn't "anti-chinese bias" you anti-Jane-biased person!

I happen to know a little about how they operate. Too bad if that doesn't fit your perception, but that doesn't justify willy-nilly insulting people. Get stuffed.

Re:Thursday

[Jane Q. Public]

I was wondering about the odd shape too... but then i thought, she's pretty young and the implant will have to work when her head and brain grow to adult size too, so perhaps they stuck a balance between an adaptive 3 part structure and projected adult size. It's more important that here cranium is the right shape when she is older, you wouldn't exactly want multiple skull transplants, that would be like the old pacemakers but massively worse.

I agree with what you say, but that wasn't the point.

The seams mimicking cranial sutures are one thing. I have no problem with that. But there is no way that uni-brow has anything to do with normal brain size or shape, or integrating with normal facial features. They did that for reasons of their own.

There have been near-complete upper skull replacements in the U.S. already (rendering this not so much of an accomplishment, merely incremental), but they were generated using PET scans and 3D-printing techniques to mold something a bit more natural-skull-like.

I have no problem with the fact that room must be made to grow. But where did that straight uni-brow come from? I have never read anything in the field that would justify it.

Re:Thursday

[Jane Q. Public]

Actually, fuck no; you're an idiot at best, and a misanthrope at worst. Did you perhaps think that maybe a bunch of people with relatively little experience in building fucking craniums did the best they could under the circumstances in order to give this little girl a chance at life extending into adulthood?

You have completely missed the point I was making, and your vehemence and vitriol say the rest. Try actually thinking about what I actually wrote, rather than running off on tangents.

Yes, portions of child skulls HAVE been done in Europe and U.S. Not quit such a large portion, but still. Their "advance" is only incremental, and they did it differently than Western doctors would have.

Do I think their method has inherent flaws? Yes, as I actually pointed out. Which had NOTHING to do with allowance for growth.

Re: Thursday

[Jane Q. Public]

"They" is implicit from the CONTEXT... which I know you just don't seem to understand.

Further, "get stuffed" is NOT an insult, it's a phrase which means "go away".

Really, guy, this was lame. Really, really lame. I can hardly wait to see those others you left.

Re:Thursday

[Jane Q. Public]

I've also never read anything in the field that would justify it, but I'm not a reconstructive surgeon. Neither are you.

Oh? Just what do you know about me, mr. "Anonymous Coward"? Oh, right... we really know who you are, don't we? That's how you can claim to know about me.

I don't have to be a climate scientist to spot data manipulation. I don't have to be a surgeon to see something that deviates widely from other work in the field. No, I am not a surgeon. But I follow the publicly-published work in reconstructive surgery when I get a reasonable chance.

Do you?

Re:Thursday

[Jane Q. Public]

You're complaining about vehemence and vitriol? Seriously?

"Complaining"? No.

There were zero "complaints" in my comment. Do you even know what the word means?

Re:Thursday

[tomxor]

... But there is no way that uni-brow has anything to do with normal brain size or shape, or integrating with normal facial features. They did that for reasons of their own.

I think i got my terminology wrong, I was actually talking about that frontal bone too... I think it's likely that the exaggerated brow is because it is the front bone size of an adult, doing the reverse would surely not work as the head grew to adult size.

Re: Thursday

[Jane Q. Public]

Actually, that was a different AC. I'm the original one, and I still think your "PR move" thing and the use of "how they operate" has more than a whiff of anti-Chinese bias

1) If you don't identify yourself don't be surprised when you get confused with someone else.

2) You can imagine whatever meaning I intended that you want. Your imagination does not make it so.

3) I owe you nothing. I am "going to have to" do nothing.

Re:Thursday

[Jane Q. Public]

Yes, you do. If you aren't familiar with a field, you cannot possibly know what a deviation is. You don't know what you don't know.

Hilarious.

Math is math. Methodology is methodology. No matter what field you are in. If you don't understand that... well, you must not be a scientist.

Re:Thursday

[Jane Q. Public]

I don't have to be a psychologist to spot a victim of Dunning-Kruger syndrome. He's the one ranting about how he understands reconstructive surgery better than reconstructive surgeons, and understands climate science better than climate scientists, etc.

A mathematician or statistician can spot improper use of statistics no matter what the field. Climate science -- and every other field of science -- uses (or is supposed to use) standard scientific and mathematical methods to prove their point.

No, you do NOT have to be a climate scientist to spot bad methodology. You only have to know a couple of things to call out a good number of climate scientists. (1) What is proper, standard scientific methodology? (2) What is proper, standard use of statistical methods on datasets?

If YOU don't understand that, then the Dunning-Kruger table has been rather turned. Have fun.

As for reconstructive surgery: I can GUESS whatever the hell I like, if I label it as such (as I did). If you don't like that, too bad. If you have contrary evidence, present it and show my guess to be wrong. Otherwise your own point works against you.

Re: Thursday

[Jane Q. Public]

You are a pathetic human being but whatever helps you sleep at night, bigot.

Whatever helps you sleep at night I guess, person-who-doesn't-know-bigotry-from-economics.

Re:Thursday

[Jane Q. Public]

Creationists only have to know a couple of things to call out a good number of biologists. Anti-vaxxers only have to know a couple of things to call out a good number of medical scientists. Moon landing crackpots only have to know a couple of things to call out a good number of NASA scientists. 9/11 Truthers only have to know a couple of things to call out a good number of materials scientists. Obama Birthers only have to know a couple of things to call out a good number of forensic scientists, etc.

The Dunning-Kruger table has been rather turned. Have fun.

Since it has been clearly explained to you many times that I am not any of those things, no they're not.

The only logical way to put those statements together is that you claim I am those things. It's not just an implication, or your final sentence would make no sense.

But making potentially damaging false claims about people in public, when you know (or reasonably should) that they are not true, is called libel. You know that, too.

So no, the tables aren't turned. They're right where they were before you made that ridiculous libelous comment. If anything, you have locked the tables firmly in place. That was a real dumbass thing to do.

I have to wonder why you keep doing it.

Re:Thursday

[Jane Q. Public]

Math and methodology only works if you know how and where to apply it. Not being an expert in any of the fields you are discussing, you wouldn't know.

That's hilarious. Data is data.

It doesn't matter where you apply your math or methodoloy, if you're doing them in an obviously incorrect way. A point which you keep seeming to miss. Scientists are not gods, they deal in the real world with real data just like so many others do.

Oh, the irony of you making that statement.

You don't seem to know what irony means either, Mr. Coward. Do you think I am not (or never have been) a scientist? On what do you base that assumption?

Peanuts

[tepples]

Han Han reached a point where she had a difficult time lifting her head which weighed more than half of her entire body weight

Which raises the question: How does Charlie Brown hold his head up?

Re:Peanuts

[Anonymous Coward]

> Which raises the question: How does Charlie Brown [hitfix.com] hold his head up?

It's filled with helium. Either that or he constantly listens to Argent.

Re:Peanuts

[meta-monkey]

Pretty sure Charlie Brown has an adamantium reinforced skeleton.

Sad story made great

[ITRambo]

This poor kid had a real life "Mars Attacks" skull. Afterward, she looks almost normal, with a slight forehead bulge that could be covered with bangs. Job well done by the doctors.

Re:Sad story made great

[Feral Nerd]

This poor kid had a real life "Mars Attacks" skull. Afterward, she looks almost normal, with a slight forehead bulge that could be covered with bangs. Job well done by the doctors.

I can only express my admiration for the father, the mother ran out on them but he didn't give up raised the money and saved the life of his daughter. He showed more determination and humanity than many other people would have been capable of in this situation including the child's own mother.

Re: Sad story made great

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess the bulge is there because the doctors thought, why not give her a size or three larger, so she doesn't need operations every 2nd year as she grows.

Growth

[Anonymous Coward]

What happens when she grows up? That skull ain't gonna grow with her. Her brain will just end up squishing itself.

Re:Growth

[redwraith94]

Yeah, but she'll be able to head butt like never before.

MMA:
"Sorry ma'am, but you've got more than 5 grams of titanium in your skull; we can't allow you to fight."

You've seriously limited her future options for gainful employment, nice job, assholes!

Re:Everything is relative

[Pentium100]

Yet the Chinese government puts enormous pressure to abort the second child in the family and literally millions of healthy children are aborted.

Abortion happens when the fetus is still not an independent lifeform. Also, abortion is legal in many Western countries, which means that quite a lot of people (me included) think that a fetus is less of a human than a child that's outside of the mother (and that the choice of the mother matters more during pregnancy - otherwise we would have to, what, chain the woman until she gives birth? because there are more ways to get an abortion than one)..

However, once the child is born, it is considered valuable (especially since time and effort was put into raising her - also this is why if I was forced to choose between a 3 year old and a baby (say to carry out of a burning building or whatever, both children being not family to me), I would save the 3 year old.

And China is severely overpopulated - it's either the One Child Policy, random executions by lottery or starving.

Re:Everything is relative

[just another AC]

I never understood this selective use of efforts comparable to other initiative: one launch of satellite costing billions, mainly to pay salaries for the thousands of engineers and technicians, could also be used to provide electricity and internet (even if it is a wireless internet) to the millions and millions of people in Africa who would really benefit from it.

Satellite launches and space industry produce indirect benefits to society (R&D into industries, scientific breakthroughs, increase productivity through increase communication capacity).

If you are going to guilt trip about first world spending at least choose a better cause (one with smaller indirect benefits and more pointless wealth redistribution). World poverty could be solved if we stopped making billion dollar Hollywood movies and everyone instead donated that ticket price to poor countries. Or what about professional sports?

But guess what... ain't going to happen. Humans are by nature tribal and selfish.

Re:Everything is relative

[amalcolm]

We made their bed .. and forced them to lie in it. Fixed that for you

Re:A girl? Why bother?

[jandersen]

...just social commentary on China

- and choosing to be an asshole, as you call it. Is being an 'asshole' by choice justified when you want to score easy points slagging off a society that you don't really seem to know much about? I'm sure we all know there are serious problems on many levels in China - as there are in most countries in the West - but unlike many countries in the West, the Chinese government are actually addressing them. You may not agree with the way they have prioritised the momentuous task ahead, but then it isn't your call either. It is easy to sit in your armchair and have great opinions about things you are not personally responsible for finding a practical solution to - not just whether some other nation should intruduce 'democracy' or 'freedom of whatever', but also the stupid questions about 'why didn't they just ....' when some expensive satelite fails etc etc. Fortunately it can't cause much harm, and one can shrug it off, but sometimes the stupidity of it just gets too irritating.

I don't mind genuinely insightful criticism, especially because insightful people know how to offer constructive criticism.

This is like a bad XMen origin story

[h33t l4x0r]

They couldn't give her retractable claws while she was under?

3D printing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is anyone else skeptical of the claim that this was 3D printing? I really doubt they used FDM to build anything out of titanium. And just in case some idiot is going to say it: no, traditional fabrication methods and CNC milling are *not* 3D printing.

Re:3D printing?

[mark-t]

Actually, you can 3d-print with titanium

Re:Thank god for African technology...

[dave420]

That is not scientific, though, as IQ has vanishingly little to do with intelligence. You seem to think the only difference between China and Africa is that one is full of Chinese people and the other is full of black people. The fact the differences between the two extend far, far beyond than that single difference seems lost on you. You are being intellectually lazy, and seem to revel in it. Pathetic.

Re:Everything is relative

[Pentium100]

How about this for a test of independence:

Will the baby survive if you kill the mother? A born baby can survive provided someone else takes care of it. An unborn baby (especially if the pregnancy is early enough for "legal" abortion) will die with the mother. An unborn baby that's almost ready to be born can survive if someone cuts it out of the dead mother fast enough.

What do you propose then? For both (not necessarily the same solution for both):
1. Unwanted babies, for example if a rape victim got pregnant from the rape and she does not want part of the rapist inside her for 9 months. While I am not a woman and cannot say for certain, I imagine pregnancy is quite inconvenient. It's a compromise if the baby is wanted, but what if not? OK, if the baby is a result of consensual sex then I guess she is at fault for not using protection or having sex at all. But what if it's trough non of her fault (rape)?
2. China's population problem. Their population still grows despite the policy (though not as fast as before) and they actually need it to shrink to be able to properly feed everyone. Would the USA (or the EU) accept, say, 400 million Chinese immigrants? No? Thought so.

groundbreaking == new?

[cablepokerface]

Because this has been done several times before already. In the US for example, or just last year in The Netherlands. (you might need google translate).

Dora too

[tepples]

It still raises the question of why cartoon characters are drawn hydrocephalic, such as Dora Marquez from Dora the Explorer , Arnold Shortman from Hey Arnold , and so many more.

Re:Dora too

[drinkypoo]

It still raises the question of why cartoon characters are drawn hydrocephalic

It's well-known that this is done for one of two reasons; either to simplify, or to make more cute. But in the latter case the face is also made more childlike in most cases, in the classic Big Eyes Small Mouth way. Examples abound.

Re:Dora too

[Chris Mattern]

Because a) it makes them looker cuter (the younger a child is, the larger its head is in proportion to its body, so large heads make chararcters look babyish and cute) and b) it allows the artist to be more expressive with the face, which is where he'll be doing most of the physical characterization.

Re:Dora too

[tepples]

it makes them looker cuter (the younger a child is, the larger its head is in proportion to its body, so large heads make chararcters look babyish and cute)

Then why doesn't a hydrocephalic real-life human look "babyish and cute"? There has to be some key difference that triggers a positive reaction in one case and an uncanny valley reaction in others. Apparently, Precious Moments products lie close to this line, with some people calling them "hydrocephalic monsters".

Also, a healthy newborn baby is about 4 heads long and only becomes taller from there. Some of the characters using this "always super deformed" art style are 2 to 3 heads tall even at elementary school age. It makes it more difficult for the viewer to assess characters' maturity level and thus the appropriateness of their reactions to events around them.

Furthermore, scenes that include rough play might be harder to follow given the change in center of mass. If COM is in the neck, wouldn't that make playground injuries that much more serious?

it allows the artist to be more expressive with the face

So does an MCU, which fills the frame with a character's head and shoulders.

Top-notch censoring on those pics!

[wardrich86]

Love how they pixellated her eyes in the first pic, but then failed to do so in any of the rest.

Re:What is the editor doing?

[xanthines-R-yummy]

... portion of her skull and http://www.medicaldaily.com/ch... it with a 3d printed ...

Slashdot editors not doing their job again?

And what happened to the submission regarding the Chattanooga shooting?

http://slashdot.org/submission/4647341/islamic-terrorism-hits-chattanooga-tn

Censorship raising its ugly head in Slashdot??

Take a chill pill, you anonymous cranks! This is a tech-oriented website. Having a 3D printed titanium skull transplanted into a living human is completely appropriate for slashdot. You know what really is off-topic for /.? The Chattanooga shooting. What does that have to do with tech, computers, the internet, etc? Sure, it's news and it's tragic, but not really within the scope of this site. Not that it's stopped other random articles from showing up of course....

One word...

[MagickalMyst]

Megamind!

Okay, maybe two words depending on how you look at it. :)

Seriously, though, this is pretty amazing!
It's nice to hear about a baby's life being saved - as opposed to all of the gloom and doom fear mongering in the mainstream media.

Re:Truly A-maaaazing, Ernie!

[MagickalMyst]

And as a fringe benefit she won't need an additional tin-foil hat to block out the government's mind control beams if she decides to pursue independent conspiracy theory investigation.

Words, what is it good for...

[DarthVain]

Chinese Girl Receives Full Skull Reconstruction Via 3D Printing

"remove a large portion of her skull"

Headline VS Summary... FIGHT!

Sounds an awful lot like Han Han had PARTIAL skull reconstruction... That's what "portion" means right?

Re:Everything is relative

[towermac]

"need it to shrink to be able to properly feed everyone"

You miss the point of our existence in the first place. If that is true, (which I doubt) then we simply need more food.

Someday soon when the population is 40 billion, I wonder how we are going to look back on these days. Especially the 70s, when many were convinced most of us were going to die soon of global famine. And the population was less than 4 billion then...

There's no social security on China?

[Saija]

As a father of a lovely girl born with spina biffida, hydrocephalus and arnold schiari I really know what are the dangers of the spinal fluid filling the brain.
Also the lack of early trearment of her hydrocephalus shocks me because they let it grows so much and by the article the family said the don't have the money required to do a treatment/surgery which also prompts me to ask: There's no social security on China?

Re:What is the editor doing?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

And what happened to the submission regarding the Chattanooga shooting?

Depends... Did it include 3D printing, drones, or Linux?