Anyone printing anything cool lately?

Re: Anyone printing anything cool lately?

Laurence Webb — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 19:33:35 GMT

I'll see your mandible and I'll raise you a kidney

http://www.ted.com/talks/anthony_atala_printing_a_human_kidney.html

Re: Anyone printing anything cool lately?

Malcolm Ness — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 10:11:22 GMT

[quote user="Bob Russell"]This sort of technology must make the insurance companies quake in their boots![/quote]

Not necessarily. In humans, anything that can return a being to useful activity (=paying taxes!) and at the same time removes them as a burden to the NHS/Welfare state is massively cost effective. Consequently, a £5=00 drug that makes somebody feel so much better that they can watch day time TV and do some light gardening is good medicine but poor economics compared with the £25K treatment that restores them to the ranks of the tax-payer.

In Vet med and surg we don't really have that kind of cost-effectiveness over-sight.

By the way, the impetus for developing MMP was to achieve outcomes comparable with TPLO/TTA but without the cost and complexity. We currently charge MMP out at about half what a TPLO or TTA costs.

(Declaration of interest: I do have a vested financial interest in MMP)

Re: Anyone printing anything cool lately?

Bob Russell — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 09:53:54 GMT

This sort of technology must make the insurance companies quake in their boots!

Re: Anyone printing anything cool lately?

jd2008 — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 02:08:23 GMT

[quote user="Malcolm Ness"]

I do some work with Orthomed UK and we have recently come up with a new cruciate surgery (Modified Maquel Procedure - MMP) .

[/quote]

Yay. Just what the veterinary field needs. Another cruciate surgery

(only kidding!)

Re: Anyone printing anything cool lately?

Michael Woodhouse — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:48:32 GMT

But what about when it gets jammed up, or spits two copies of the jaw out instead of one. Just as you are finishing a big job you'd run out of toner.........

Re: Anyone printing anything cool lately?

Malcolm Ness — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:07:38 GMT

It isn't in the same league of complexity as this mandible but we have used similar technology - stereolithography - in development of vet orthopaedic instruments and implants.

I do some work with Orthomed UK and we have recently come up with a new cruciate surgery (Modified Maquel Procedure - MMP) . During development, we used stereolithography to "print" solid plastic versions of the prototype instrumentation and implants that we trialled on cadavers. Subsequently, the first run of instruments that we used on the first couple of patients were also CAD generated plastic models printed by stereolithograhy and gas-sterilised before use. The technology is mind-boggling.