A custom-made wrist, made with a 3D printer, saves a new mother’s right hand. The operation was carried out at the Agostino Gemelli Irccs University Hospital Foundation in Rome by the team of Giulio Maccauro, director of the UOC of Orthopedics. The right hand of a woman suffering from a rare tumor of the wrist was “saved, thanks to the implantation of a prosthesis custom-built with a 3D printer by an Italian company, with the indications of the orthopedic surgeons of the Gemelli Polyclinic. The young The woman who recently became a mother is doing well and moves all the fingers on her hand. It is the first operation of this type carried out in the world and represents an excellent example of personalized surgery”, underlines Gemelli.
“She is a 39-year-old patient and has already undergone several orthopedic operations for the treatment of a rare tumor that had completely destroyed her right wrist joint. The woman – the doctors continue – has regained the use of her right hand and averted the danger of amputation thanks to a complex surgery that also represents an absolute ‘first’ worldwide.The patient underwent resection and reconstruction of the wrist with radio-metacarpal stabilization, thanks to the positioning of the prosthesis produced ‘ customized’ for her with a 3D printer”.
“The use of a personalized 3D prosthesis – explains Maccauro – allowed us to adapt the operation to the specific needs of the patient, guaranteeing accurate anatomical reproduction and a high degree of functionality. Wrist reconstruction with radiometacarpal stabilization represents a significant advance in the restoration of motor skills and in the patient’s quality of life.
“And it is an operation that has particular added value for a woman who has just become a mother of a baby girl; the surgeons waited for the breastfeeding period to end to intervene. The patient suffers from giant cell tumor, a rare tumor ( and localization on the wrist is a rarity in the rarity) locally aggressive and recurred several times, until the joint is completely compromised”, the doctors recall.
It was necessary, to save her hand, to replace her wrist with a prosthesis. But there are no ‘industrial’ (ie ready-made) prostheses for this part of the body (as happens instead for the hip or knee). “For this – adds Maccauro – we contacted an Italian company, Adler-Ortho, specialized in the design and production of joint prostheses which, starting from the patient’s CT scan and following our instructions, created a computer prototype, 3D printed in plastic; we examined it, asked to make some modifications and at that point the definitive prosthesis was ‘printed’ in chronocobalt and titanium. For the operation it was necessary to carry out a double access – continues Maccauro – from the dorsal and volar side ( inferior) of the wrist, to free and secure the vessels, nerves and flexor and extensor tendons of the hand. Subsequently we performed a proximal bone resection of the forearm and a distal resection at the base of the metacarpals, which are the bones on which the fingers of the hands articulate. Finally we placed this prosthesis, which allows us to preserve the movement of the fingers”.
