When Shirley Anderson was diagnosed with cancer in 1998, he didn't think the price he would have to pay for this disease. As if a cancerous lump under his tongue wasn't enough, that the radiation therapy and chemotherapy also had to take his lower jaw away.
While many doctors and experts did their best to give Anderson his jaw back, but to no avail. Several other attempts took place, such as replacing a portion of his mandible with a radium implant, but nothing lasted long enough to restore Anderson's life to normalcy. That is when Shirley Anderson thought of giving prosthetics a shot and Dr. Travis Bellicchi had just what he needed.
Dr. Bellicchi, a maxillofacial prosthodontics resident at Indiana University, first tried a conventional prosthetic jaw made of clay. However, the jaw was too uncomfortable for him to wear more than four hours in a day. This is when Bellicchi thought of trying 3D printing technology.
Bellicchi and his team of experts, along with Formlabs, succeeded in creating a bespoke prosthetic for Anderson. This jaw he was able to wear for longer periods of time without feeling the discomfort. Even though the process was complex, it still turned out to be a highly successful one.
Shirley Anderson's face was digitally modeled to capture the making of his bones, down to the smallest detail. This process will help in making lighter prosthesis, with better-fitting prospects. "My motivation to use traditional materials is that they are predictable, they are bio-compatible, they have research behind them, and we know how to do the characterization to make them lifelike," Bellicchi said.
