85 Year Old Woman Walks Again After 3D Printed Knee Surgery

[Brian_Krassenstein]

Dr. Ganapathi regularly performs knee replacements surgery. However, when he adopted 3D printing as the primary method for creating the replacements, that was so regular. The introduction of this extraordinary technique has helped increase patient satisfaction as well as cut down on the wait time to have knee replacement surgery performed. One beneficiary of this is 85-year-old Irena Griffith who is able to walk unaided and without pain for the first time in five years since, since having the surgery. Additional details on this surgery and 3D printed knee surgery can be found here: http://3dprint.com/69916/3d-printed-knee/


Below is a picture of both Dr. Ganapathi and Griffith

[Daniel3DOps]

One note; the cited article makes this story sound like Dr. Ganapathi creates his own knee replacements. However, that is not true. He merely sends the patient's scan data to the company that sells the knee implants (in this case, Zimmer), and they in turn create patient specific instrumentation to aid in their knee implant placement. There would be huge regulatory implications were Dr. Ganapathi creating one-off implants in his office.

I was the design engineer on a similar product at a competitor of Zimmer. This process eliminates about half the time spent doing joint replacement and the need to drill into a patient's intramedullary canal.