6 year old, Kaiba Gionfriddo, was admitted to the C.S. Mott
Children’s Hospital at the University of Michigan after he had stopped
breathing. Chances of survival slowly dimmed
as Kaiba was found to be suffering from bronchial malacia, a condition
involving a rare obstruction in the lungs.
Doctors then tried the medical equivalent of a “Hail Mary”
pass, reports say.
Doctors used a splint to carve a path through Kaiba’s
blocked airway created on a 3D printer. A CT scan was used to determine the
exact dimensions of Kaiba’s lungs in order to construct a computer model for the
splint. Doctors explained that that the
process of creating a model on the computer is very quick. The splint was
surgically attached to Kaiba’s collapsed bronchus and results were seen moments
after.
"When the stitches were put in, we started seeing the
lung inflate and deflate," Dr. Glenn Green, associate professor of
pediatric otolaryngology at the University of Michigan, stated. "It was so
fabulous. There were people in the operating room cheering."
The splint was engineered from a powder called
polycaprolactone, or PCL, which is often used to fill holes in the skull after
brain surgery. It will degrade over time and hopefully leave behind a fully
functioning lung.
For the full article, visit http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/22/health/baby-surgery/index.html?hpt=he_t5
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