In a first for the country, surgeons in Brazil have announced that they have successfully implanted 3D-printed titanium plates into the skull of a 23-year-old woman who had fractured the bones across the right side of her head.
While revolutionary medical applications are constantly being developed through 3D printing technology, most of these life-saving achievements are taking place in academic hospitals in China and the West. Fortunately, doctors from the Brazilian medical hospital UNICAMP (Universidade Estadual de Campinas) in Campinas show that 3D printed medical applications are also being developed elsewhere. In their academic hospital in the greater São Paolo region, they have recently completed the first ever surgery involving a 3D printed titanium implant in Brazil.
The BIOFABRIS is a National Institute of S&T in Biomanufacturing of multidisciplinary,
located at the Chemical Engineering Campus of UNICAMP, character that aims to integrate computational tools, synthesis and development of new biomaterials and application of engineering techniques to obtain biomedical devices (prostheses and orthopedic orthoses) and substitutes for live biological tissues or defective or missing human organs.