First ever 3D-printed jaw transplanted into patient's face

Doctors have for the first time fitted a 3D printer-created lower jaw to an 83-year-old woman’s face in the Netherlands.

The transplant was carried out in June, but is publicised only now.

The implant was made out of titanium powder -- heated and fused together by a laser, one layer at a time.

Technicians say the operation’s success paves the way for the use of more 3D-printed patient-specific parts.

The surgery follows research carried out at the Biomedical Research Institute at Hasselt University in Belgium, and the implant was built by LayerWise -- a specialised metal-parts manufacturer based in the same country.

The patient involved had developed a chronic bone infection. Doctors believed reconstructive surgery would have been risky because of her age and so opted for the new technology.

The implant is a complex part -- involving articulated joints, cavities to promote muscle attachment and grooves to direct the regrowth of nerves and veins.

However, once designed, it only took a few hours to print.

“Once we received the 3D digital design, the part was split up automatically into 2D layers and then we sent those cross sections to the printing machine,” Ruben Wauthle, LayerWise’s medical applications engineer, told the BBC.

“It used a laser beam to melt successive thin layers of titanium powder together to build the part.

“This was repeated with each cross section melted to the previous layer. It took 33 layers to build 1mm of height, so you can imagine there were many thousand layers necessary to build this jawbone,” he explained.