14 DAY TRIAL // Replacement teeth are easy enough to make, even if they aren't really all that cheap themselves, but it's a totally different matter to create a replacement for the whole jaw, or even part of it. Now, though, the biggest problems have been overcome with the help of 3D printing technology.
Replacing anything of the human body carries a lot of limitations, and you don't usually get anything good enough to perfectly restore your range of motion and endurance.
Setting aside that sometimes surgeons have to use materials heavier than natural bone, there are also problems when the body integrates the implants / prosthetics, assuming they aren't rejected altogether.
Even if they are accepted, they never have the exact shape as the original body part. Or perhaps we should say they never did, since now humanity has the tools to make more or less perfect replicas.
3D printing technology helps produce replacement jaw
We've seen things like this happen before. 3D printing technology would be used to make replacement hips or other joints.
Other times, it would be employed to make a model of an injured or diseased area, which would, in turn, allow medics to plan surgeries better.
In this case, we have a situation of the latter type. Surgeons from India have been able to give a palate cancer patient a new upper jaw.
Cancer is a nasty disease and has many variations. The Indian patient suffered from such a severe case that the doctors had to remove his upper jaw. This left his mouth and sections of his mouth exposed.
Six weeks of radiotherapy only made things worse, since it caused lockjaw, making him almost incapable of opening his mouth.
He wanted a prosthesis, but the inability to open his mouth made it pretty much impossible to make a mold. Fortunately, Osteo3D got involved and used a CT scan to make a 3D printed replica of the patient's mouth, with both lower and upper jaws and perfectly capable of opening and closing.
How it all went down
This replica was used to produce a mold not just as good but better than the one that would have been made using the real-life jaw if it could have opened.
The 3D printed replica template enabled the making of a wax model which, after a few adjustments, was hardened, fitted with teeth and given to the patient to use. Now the man can speak, chew, swallow and do pretty much everything else a man is supposed to be able to do.
