Physicians and the future with 3D printing

The 3D printing zone
How soon before the doctors of the Middle East embrace the
possibilities of 3D printing? (Images via Jacqueline
Sofia)

Covering everything from remote controlled hospital beds to
oxygen therapy and aerosol masks, last week’s Arab Health exhibition in
Dubai was busy. Wamda partner, GE had a presence there, with
digital, big data and the Industrial Internet playing a big role in
its offerings.

A focus on the healthcare of the future was clear at this year’s
event. Amidst the healthcare professionals and exhibitors a diverse
group of physicians convened in a private room to discuss
advancements in healthcare that went beyond basic manufacturing and
promotion, to the future, at the 3D Printing Conference.

For

Dr Nizar Zein
, a Syrian-American physician
and the Mikati Foundation Endowed chair and chief of Hepatology at
Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, his interest in 3D printing began five
years ago when reading an article in Starbucks about engineers
using the technology.

Several years later, his curiosity got the
better of him and he led a team of physicians to create the first
3D printed model of a human liver.

Not only was it the first one to be produced, he
told Wamda, “but the first to be validated against human organs”.
 

After that first liver, Zein’s team created many
more replicas of the organ, each with different kinds of liver
diseases and deformities, including a 3D version of a patient’s
unusual hepatic vein positioning. In this particular case, without
that 3D printed model, surgeons conducting advanced procedural
planning would likely have severed the patient’s hepatic vein
on the operating table.

 A 3D liver from the Cleveland Clinic
Zein’s 3D
printed liver from the Cleveland Clinic.

Zein believes that 3D printing is an inevitable
reality for the future of medicine.

“We are observing, or watching, the very early
stages, the beginnings, of what could transform or significantly
change the way we do medical practice in the future,” he
said.

From education to the growing of organs for
transplants, he says the spectrum of possibilities is
wide.

Science fiction as reality, and
profit

According to Zein and his fellow speakers, it is apparent that
3D printing for the purposes of healthcare is a multidimensional
and uncharted industry.  

It’s not like printing your own shoe or drinking
glass, it requires participation from a variety of experts and
innovators – doctors, scientists, engineers, manufacturers and
entrepreneurs all play a role.

Mohamed Elawad is the founder and CEO of 3D Organs, a startup based in Abu
Dhabi that prints anatomical models.  

Elawad’s business provides a unique combination
of product and service. “Each model is patient specific, and
they’re used mainly in pre-operative planning,” he told
Wamda.

They also create models for educational use; at
the moment, they are building a congenital heart disease library
for a teaching hospital.

He emphasized the patient empowerment aspect of
3D printed organs. “They’re also great tools for educating patients
about their condition and what the options are in terms of surgery.
Giving them something to hold and see, it allows them to have a
much easier grasp of what’s going on, rather than looking at a
black and white image on a 2D screen.”

Sajjad Kamal, cofounder of the Dubai-based
startup 
AlemHealth,
was excited to see the potential for greater access that 3D
printing could provide. AlemHealth provides telemedicine and
digital health solutions for ‘frontier’ markets, and they see 3D
printing as potentially

enhancing their services
.

“If you’re in a remote area, in places that
don’t have access to stuff, what are you going to do? So, being
able to transcend that whole supply chain barrier, or even time
difference, for example ‘3D print this part, we’ll guide you
through it [the procedure]’ I think is fascinating.”

Will the Middle East embrace 3D?

Despite being a part of the massive Arab Health
exhibition, the 3D Printing Conference had a minimal Arab presence
on stage.

Local representation was limited to Dr Jamal Jomah of MedArt
Clinic in Saudi Arabia, and his discussion on 3D printing as a
means of providing plastic surgery patients with tactile encounters
of their new “aesthetic” reconstruction before the procedure.
 

When asked what he saw as barriers for a
physician using 3D printing he said that the main limiting factor
were the printers and the geographic accessibility to such
technology. However, “now that we have local printers and you can
actually buy the printer yourself if you have a large center”,
there are less cost-prohibitive factors associated. Jomah claimed
that he paid $300 for a 3D replication of a full face fom a printer
in the US.

A 3D heart for pre-op planning
A 3D
printed heart for pre-surgical planning, made by a 3D model
manufacturer in Europe.

Elawad of 3D Organs believes that, despite the
limited representation of Arab physicians at the conference, there
is a growing market for 3D printing in medicine.  

“Some people have already used it,” he said.
“The ones that already have used it [here in the region] love
it.”

At the same time, he admitted that cost has
become one of his biggest barriers as an entrepreneur. “Because the
economic value hasn’t been completely realized. The clinic value is
almost implicit, but the economic value and justifying the cost
sometimes is not there.  So, we have a while to
go.”

And what about adoption by regional physicians?
Zein gave an important disclaimer, explaining that physicians by
nature are trained in a very scientific way. “Because we deal with
human life, we are not used to just taking one person’s experience,
or one institution’s experience and saying, ‘Okay, this is a matter
of fact,’” he said. “Everything in medicine needs to be validated
by multiple people and optimized.”  

He went on to say that physicians shouldn’t shy away
from the technology. “Clearly this is a technology that will make
its way to our practices. They should actually, on the contrary,
think ‘how could it be most useful in my practice?’ and if chances
allow to test this idea, they should test it.”

Source : Wamda.com

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