3-D printed spine saves cancer-stricken man in China

Doctors in Beijing used 3-D printing to create a new spine for a local man after five cancer-riddled vertebrae were removed from his body. The procedure is a world first in terms of the length of vertebrae replaced this way, the doctors say.

The man from Beijing, surnamed Yuan, 40,underwent a surgery over six hours to have a 3-D printed implant of multiple thoracic and lumbar vertebral bodies, measuring 19 centimeters, inserted into his spine. In an earlier operation lasting eight hours, doctors had removed five vertebral posterior structures of the cancer-riddled vertebrae.

The vertebrae were affected by chordoma, a cancer that can occur anywhere in the spine and skull. The surgery’s success means he is able to live a normal life after he recovers. With traditional treatment, doctors say, even in the best of circumstances he may have been left paralyzed.

Treatment for chordoma, a slow-growing cancer, usually involves surgery to remove the tumor first, before using chemotherapy or radiotherapy if necessary.

Liu Zhongjun, director of the orthopedics department at Peking University Third Hospital, where the surgery was performed, said that chordoma is not rare for them but in Yuan’s case, what was rare was how many verterbrae were affected by the cancer.

Titanium mesh cage, which is traditionally used in such surgeries, would have been straight and ill-suited to Yuan’s spine.Also, with normal titanium mesh cage, doctors usually put crushed bone in the mesh cage, so that when that bone fuses with the neighboring bones the implant becomes stronger and firm enough to support the spine.In Yuan’s case this method was judged to be too risky because of the size of the implant needed. Any movement of the implant would damage the spinal cord and nerve roots in the spinal channel.

Yuan’s 3-D printed implant was customised to cope with the curvature of his spine, and doctors designed special joints to attach it firmly to the titanium rods, which made the two parts of the implant a strong whole that is firm and is very supportive of the spine.

The 3-D printed implant also has pores that allow bones on healthy vertebrae to grow into the artificial implant and eventually to fuse with it.

More than 60 patients have benefited from 3-D printed orthopedic implants in the hospital, Liu said.

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