In Lviv, a boy with cancer was transplanted with a bone printed on a 3D printer
In Lviv, a boy with cancer was transplanted with a femur printed on a 3D printer. This is the first time such an operation has been carried out in western Ukraine. This is reported by the First Medical Association of Lviv. Eight-year-old Bohdan from Ivano-Frankivsk region has Ewing’s sarcoma. It is a bone cancer that most often occurs in children and adolescents. According to the medical organization, it is diagnosed in 3 children out of a million every year. The boy is fighting cancer for the second time. 8-year-old Bohdan received a femur transplant. “At the age of 3, he was diagnosed with liver cancer. Then the kid went a long way to recovery and underwent a complex operation to remove the tumor along with the gall bladder,” the organization said. This time, the malignant tumor affected 28 cm of the femur of the child. To save the leg, it was necessary to replace the cancerous part with an implant. The titanium implant was made by Kyiv engineers. They created three variants of different lengths. It took about 1.5 months – a month of design and 2 weeks of printing. Creating a bone on a 3D printer took about 1.5 months. The operation was performed at the Saint Nicholas Hospital by doctors from Lviv, Kyiv and Ivano-Frankivsk. They prepared for it for half a year. First, doctors removed the tumor itself and performed an express biopsy to determine the extent of bone removal. Only then did specialists remove it and install an implant that will grow with the child. The operation lasted 6 hours. “Bohdanchyk has already returned to Ivano-Frankivsk and is continuing treatment, which will be long-term. Ahead of the boy are several courses of polychemotherapy and radiation therapy, as well as a bone marrow transplant,” the First Medical Association of Lviv reported. This is the first time such an operation was performed in the west of Ukraine. We will remind you that earlier we wrote about a study that established that cancer makes you younger. Read also: Lviv doctors transplanted skin to a child from a posthumous donor for the first time in Ukraine.
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