14 DAY TRIAL // Ossifying Fibroma are benign bone lesions that form in the spinal area. They're a type of bone tumor basically. Very rare and especially around the spine.
Unfortunately, a 21-year-old university student named Wang Lin found that she was afflicted with this condition when she had herself checked out by the doctors at the Zhejiang University School of Medicine in Hangzhou, China.
Having been experiencing chest pains for a long time by that point, she wanted to find out what the problem was.
Normally, the surgery for this condition was very risky, as it needed to remove the lesions and leave the vertebrae very brittle. Permanent damage is pretty much guaranteed. Even artificial vertebrae don't usually come out just right, and take months to finish, and might still be imperfect.
Fortunately, 3D printing saved the day again. CT scan data was used to create a virtual 3D model of the patient's spine. Based on it, the doctors created a perfectly fitting 3D printed titanium implant (titanium doesn't set off any alarms on the part of the human immune system), which they inserted in place of the affected vertebrae through an incision in the chest.
Lin’s 10th and 11th vertebrae were replaced in this manner, while some surrounding tissue was removed. A full recovery is expected.
