3D Printing is Being Used to Treat Children With Severe Burns

3D printing is making more and more progress in the medical field with applications in bioprinting, 3D printed prostheses, digitization of dentistry and much more. Adding to the advances of additive manufacturing in medicine is a recent collaboration between Italy and France. It is a pilot project carried out by the Romans Ferrari pediatric rehabilitation center in Lyon in collaboration with 3DZ. 3DZ is a 3D printer distribution company based in Castelfranco Veneto (TV), with several offices around the world and significant experience in the field. In this case, 3D printing has been used to produce facial masks that can help treat children with facial burns.

The Romans Ferrari Center in Lyon, a pediatric rehabilitation facility that has treated severely burned children for many years, involved students from the Ecole Centrale de Lyon and approached 3DZ’s French branch. Ultimately, the goal was to find a less painful alternative method of making the orthoses that are used to treat burns on the faces of children and others. Namely, to make the facial orthosis (i.e., a plate that is placed on the face) using conventional methods, an impression of the face must be taken, which is then used to make a mask that is a perfect and pliable replica of the child’s face. In this method, the face is modeled with plaster strips that are applied directly to the skin, which is painful and disturbing, especially for the skin and sensitivity of children.

Photo Credits: 3DZ

The collaboration between 3DZ and Romans Ferrari therefore made it possible to rethink this procedure and make it more child-friendly and generally less invasive and more efficient. In essence, the companies replaced the plaster cast with a 3D scan of the patient’s face. Thanks to the 3D scanner, they were able to obtain a perfect reproduction of the patient’s face in all its details without coming into contact with his skin.