3-D Printing Comes Online

HealthLeaders Magazine—April 18, 2016

HealthLeaders Magazine's Sandra Gittlen reports on the use of 3-D printing techniques in health care. According to the article, "Sophisticated imaging and modeling means that complex structures such as heart openings can be designed with such accuracy that implants work better and recovery from surgery is improved."

Joseph Lipman, MS, director of device development at Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) explains why HSS utilizes 3-D printing. "3-D printing already is becoming more patient-specific, and that will continue. Instead of having different sizes that you have to fit the patient into, implants will be modeled from the patient's own anatomy."

Lipman adds, "Surgeons are tactile, and before we could only show them 2-D pictures and they'd have to create the 3-D image in their head. Now they have a 3-D physical object to give them a sense of scale and help visualize how to cut the bone and better align it."

To read more, visit HealthLeadersMedia.com.