All articles Manufacturing Medical Software

Successfully Constructing Surgical Guides for Temporomandibular Joint Ankylosis Surgery

Vickneswaran Renganathan
June 11, 2016
Successfully Constructing Surgical Guides for Temporomandibular Joint Ankylosis Surgery

Temporomandibular joint ankylosis, or the fusion of the jawbone, is most often the result of an injury or infection, and it prevents the patient from opening their mouth properly. It can only be treated with surgery, but due to the complex nature of the operation which presents a lot of risks for the patient, surgeons are often too careful to really perform an effective surgery. This means that the problem isn’t solved properly and is in danger of recurring.

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Visualizing Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation: the PCR Valve Atlas

Liesbeth Kemel
June 07, 2016
Visualizing Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation: the PCR Valve Atlas

The PCR Valve Atlas is a visual atlas covering all aspects of Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation (TAVI). The application, an initiative of PCR, the main reference source for the cardiovascular community, targets intermediate level interventionists and surgeons as well as medical professionals planning to start a TAVI program.

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Meet the Team behind Materialise Mimics inPrint

Stephanie Benoit
June 02, 2016
Meet the Team behind Materialise Mimics inPrint

In this post, we’ll be taking a closer look at the fantastic work done by the Materialise office in Kiev, Ukraine. With a large part of their efforts focused on software development, we spoke to team leader Olga Sholonik about the development of Materialise Mimics inPrint; the go-to software for 3D Printing in hospitals.

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Laying the Groundwork for Industry-Wide Guidelines for 3D Printing Applications in Medicine

Sandrine Debecker
May 31, 2016
Laying the Groundwork for Industry-Wide Guidelines for 3D Printing Applications in Medicine

May 19th and 20th marked the first definitive meeting between industry leaders to set a common standard for measuring clinical, economical and patient benefits of Medical 3D Printing. An initiative led by Materialise, in partnership with SME, the event on “Building Evidence for 3D Printing Applications in Medicine” was truly a success, and created the building blocks from which the entire 3D Printing industry will benefit.

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Designing a Patient-Specific 3D-Printed Cast with the Lightweight Structures Module

Todd Pietila
May 27, 2016
Designing a Patient-Specific 3D-Printed Cast with the Lightweight Structures Module

A talented team of engineers at Michigan Technological University has developed a method for creating a patient-specific 3D-printed cast to treat bone fractures of the forearm and wrist. The project leverages Materialise's Lightweight Structures Module which was used to create the high porosity lattice structure of the casts. These were then 3D printed at Materialise’s production facilities for human testing.

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When a Complex Congenital Heart Surgery Goes Exactly to Plan

Liesbeth Kemel
May 20, 2016
When a Complex Congenital Heart Surgery Goes Exactly to Plan

3-year-old Ivy was born with a complex congenital heart disease (CHD), and diagnosed with absent pulmonary valve syndrome and Tetralogy of Fallot. When she was 6 months old, the girl underwent an operation to repair these conditions, which were causing her pulmonary arteries to dilate out of proportion and compressing her airways. The surgeon at the time carried out the LeCompte Maneuver during the repair, which involves the re-plumbing of the pulmonary arteries anterior to the aorta to relieve pressure on the patient’s lungs. A conduit was positioned between the right ventricle and the pulmonary arteries.

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Ground-Breaking Elbow Transplant Assisted by Materialise

Toon Lenaerts
May 17, 2016
Ground-Breaking Elbow Transplant Assisted by Materialise

After a car accident seven years ago, Reggie Cook was left with a variety of injuries that made him unable to walk or feed himself. He injured a major upper extremity nerve in his left arm, losing feeling and function in an otherwise normal limb, and shattered the elbow in his right arm. At this point, he approached his surgeon in El Paso, Texas, Dr. Eric Sides, with the novel idea of using the healthy but useless elbow of his left arm for an elbow transplant to replace the injured one on his right side.

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Simulating Surgical Procedures to Analyze Closing-Wedge versus Opening-Wedge Osteotomy

Stephanie Benoit
May 12, 2016
Simulating Surgical Procedures to Analyze Closing-Wedge versus Opening-Wedge Osteotomy

For patients with early stages of osteoarthritis, high tibial osteotomy (HTO) can be a useful treatment option. In the closing-wedge version of this operation, a wedge of bone is cut out of the lateral side of the tibia, whereas with the opening-wedge osteotomy, a bone graft is inserted in a cut made on the medial side. Both realign the knee and relieve pressure from the joint. The closing-wedge technique is more common, but recently, the opening-wedge osteotomy has become more popular since it is less invasive and possibly results in less deformity of the proximal tibia.

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Building Evidence for 3D Printing Applications in Medicine

Kim Francois
May 05, 2016
Building Evidence for 3D Printing Applications in Medicine

When you scroll through former posts on this Materialise Medical blog, there are countless examples of the added value of Medical 3D Printing and how the technology is changing the lives of patients everywhere. Those stories make the clinical benefits of 3D Printing clear, and show just how much of an impact this technology has been having on different medical fields. To make it widely available and gain acceptance from hospitals, doctors, users and policymakers, clinical evidence is crucial.

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Getting Under the Skin: Analyzing Thumb Movement in 3D

Alex M
April 27, 2016
Getting Under the Skin: Analyzing Thumb Movement in 3D

The study of thumb movement has long been hampered by the limitations of conventional motion-capture techniques. To really get underneath the skin of the test subjects, researchers at KU Leuven Kulak turned to medical 3D imaging to view the full range of the hand’s kinematic chain, including the trapeziometacarpal, scaphotrapezial and radioscaphoid joints.

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