So We're 3D Printing Replacement Skulls Now

Forget Cousin Eddie and the metal plate in his head, this is the future. A man recently became the first person to have part of his skull replaced with made-to-fit pieces that were 3D printed. How's that for high tech?

As I expect is the case with any easily-used distributed technology (cough the internet), 3D printing's popularity has been fueled by vice. With dildos, bongs, guns, and a moon base to stash 'em in, a casual observer might think the 3D printing world is run by a bunch of horny drug addicts that are scared of the government. But the truth is that all of the above just show how mighty of a manufacturing technology 3D printing actually is.

The advantage of a 3D-printed skull is obvious: Rather than trying to hand-shape a polymer replacement piece for a patient with skull trauma–which means you can't necessarily press a mold–a 3D-printed fragment can be mapped exactly to a patient's skull. In fact, Oxford Performance Materials, the Connecticut company who's developed the technology, does just that. OPM's OsteoFab device uses skull scans–MRI or CT scans will do–to precisely construct skull patches using a polymer that OPM says has twice the compressive strength of what's currently used, and which fresh bone can actually grow on.

OPM received FDA approval to use its tech on February 18, and by March 4 the first OPM implant was used on a live patient, which reportedly replaced a large portion of the patient's skull. OPM has said that the tech could be used to replace up to 75 percent of a patient's dome. (If you're a 3D printer geek, OPM uses an EOSINT P800 laser-sintering machine from the German company EOS.)

Apparently somewhere between 300 and 500 US patients a month need skull implants, which means 3D-printed parts could be hugely beneficial. But that's hardly the end of the road. OPM has said previously that it plans on developing bone replacements for all the piece of your skeleton, and not just your dome. That's an incredible thought, but hey, it doesn't seem outlandish. Show of hands: Who wants to replace their wimpy old bones with a kick-ass, 3D-printed polymer?

@derektmead