2020
11 Alive
Justice was diagnosed with double aortic arch. The team at the hospital called on biomedical engineers at Georgia Tech. They performed the 3D tracheal splint surgery.
https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/family/story/twins-reunite-undergoes-rare-heart-surgery-74360925
Twins reunite after one undergoes rare heart surgery.
2019
Rose Scott 90.1 FM WABE
Using 3-D printing, Dr. Harsha Ramaraju, a postdoctoral fellow in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering and Sarah Jo Crotts, lab manager for the Tissue Engineering and Mechanics Lab, are able to create customized, tracheal splints for child patients. Closer Look recently visited the team at their lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology. as part of the program’s tech week series, to see how the technology works.
2018
Georgia Tech
3D-Printed Tracheal Splints Used in Groundbreaking Pediatric Surgery
3D Printing Industry
11 Alive
3D Printed Tracheal Splints Used in Groundbreaking Pediatric Surgery
The August 17 procedure was the first-ever performed in the southeast and the 15th procedure overall.
3D Natives
https://www.3dnatives.com/en/3d-printed-tracheal-splinter-complex-surgery-250920184/
3Ders.org
3D printed tracheal splints restore the breathing of a 7-month-old baby
With assistance from Georgia Tech, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta has performed Georgia’s first-ever procedure to place 3D printed tracheal splints in a pediatric patient. The team used three 3D printed custom-made splints to assist the breathing of a 7-month-old patient battling life-threatening airway obstruction.
WSB Radio
3D-Printed Technology Used in Life Saving Pediatric Surgery for the First Time in the Southeast
Amir is just 7 months old and is battling both congenital heart disease and Tracheobronchomalacia, a condition that causes severe life-threatening airway obstruction. He has suffered a number of episodes of airway collapse that could not be corrected with typical surgery protocols. A team at CHOA proposed an experimental procedure where they would insert a 3-D printed tracheal splint, which was created in part at Georgia Tech to open his airways. His mother agreed to Georgia’s first ever procedure to place 3-D printed tracheal splints in a pediatric patient.
2015
Detroit News
Christmas Text Led Life Saving Gift
Texas girl alive thanks to UM doctors and a ‘Christmas Miracle’.
CNN
The long metal table in the University of Michigan biomedical engineering lab is covered by a film of white dust. Scattered across the table are opaque-colored objects shaped like ears, noses, vertebrae, and jawbones – all made from biological material.
The New Yorker
How 3-D Printing is Revolutionizing Medicine
The exponents of 3-D printing contend that the technology is making manufacturing more democratic; the things we are choosing to print are becoming ever more personal and intimate. This appears to be even more true in medicine: increasingly, what we are printing is ourselves.
2013
Today
3D Printer Produces Device to Help Baby Breathe
When 18-month-old Kaiba Gionfriddo was born, his family learned that his trachea was flattened, making it impossible to breathe. Engineers used a 3-D printer to make a revolutionary custom splint that holds his windpipe open, enabling him to take his first full breath. NBC’s Kevin Tibbles reports
Huffington Post
3D-Printed Medical Devices Spark FDA Evaluation
When Kaiba Gionfriddo was just a few months old, a 3D-printed device saved his life. Thanks to 3D printing, a technology that produces objects of any shape, including medical devices highly customized for patients, from a computer model, these kinds of stories are becoming increasingly common. In order to keep up, the FDA is now looking at how it might evaluate medical devices made using 3D printers.
NBC News
Doctors Print Up a Splint for Baby’s Blocked Throat
Kaiba Gionfriddo of Youngstown, Ohio, has a bioprinted splint holding his airways open. Without it, he wouldn’t be able to breathe.
USA Today
Doctors Use 3-D Printer to Custom-Design Implant for Baby
Researchers at the University of Michigan used a 3-D printer to build a tiny splint-like implant that saved a baby boy with life-threatening breathing problems. With the implant’s success, custom-designing medical devices on a 3-D printer may become common.
U.S. News
3-D Printed Medical Device Saves a Life for the First Time
3D printers are increasingly being used in medical settings. A small piece of plastic turned out to be the key to saving a young boy’s life.
NPR
3-D Printer Makes Life-Saving Splint For Baby Boy’s Airway
A 3-D printer is being credited with helping to save an Ohio baby’s life, after doctors “printed” a tube to support a weak airway that caused him to stop breathing. The innovative procedure has allowed Kaiba Gionfriddo, of Youngstown, Ohio, to stay off a ventilator for more than a year.
United Press International, Inc
Doctors 3D Print Emergency Airway Tube, Save Baby’s Life
Doctors obtained emergency FDA clearance to surgically sew a 3D-printed splint to Kaiba Gionfriddo’s trachea.
Smithsonian
Doctors Use a Dissolvable 3D-Printed Tracheal Splint to Save a Baby’s Life
An infant’s collapsing airway now has a device holding it open; as his tissue strengthens, the splint will be absorbed into his body.
Independent
Splint Made by 3D Printer Used to Save Baby’s Life
‘Vacuum cleaner’ for windpipe created by experts in Michigan hailed as a medical breakthrough.
New England Journal of Medicine
Bioresorbable Airway Splint Created with a Three-Dimensional Printer
CBS News
Airway Made by 3D Printer Saves Infants Life
A 3D printer saved the life of a baby boy with a rare disease that kept him from breathing properly.
TIME
If you think 3D printing’s overhyped with all this talk of plastic guns and strange, spider-like houses, you clearly haven’t seen this: a tiny airway splint created using a 3D printer that saved a three-month-old’s life.
Nature World News
Researchers Create Airway Splint for Boy Using 3D Printer
Kaiba Gionfriddo, a 20-month-old boy, has become the first person in the world to receive an airway splint made using a 3-D printer. The boy had a collapsed bronchus that was disrupting the airflow to his lungs, making him unable to breathe.
New York Daily News
Doctors Use 3-D Printer to Create Airway Splint, Saving Toddler’s Life
In a medical first, doctors used plastic particles and a 3-D laser printer to create an airway splint to save the life of a baby boy who used to stop breathing nearly every day.
Gizmodo
How a 3D Printer Helped a Child Breathe Again
When Kaiba Gionfriddo was born, his parents never expected to have to look on, helpless, as his windpipe collapsed daily and stopped him from breathing. They were desperate—so when a team of researchers suggested that a 3D printercould help, they leapt at the chance.
The Chronicle
Splint Made by 3D Printer Used to Save Baby’s Life
A BABY’S life has been saved by using a device to help him breathe created by a 3D printer.
Scientific American
3-D Printed Windpipe Gives Infant Breath of Life
A flexible, absorbable tube helps a baby boy breathe, and heralds a future of body parts printed on command.
National Geographic
3-D Printers Are Saving Lives and Serving Pizzas
Biomedical engineers at the University of Michigan have revealed how they used 3-D printing technology to fashion a tiny, custom-made implant that helped save the life of a newborn baby boy.
New York Times
Kaiba Gionfriddo is able to breathe despite a birth defect because his doctors used a 3-D printer to create a tiny tracheal splint to keep his airway open.
Nature
3-D Printed Windpipe Gives Infant Breath of Life
A flexible, absorbable tube helps a baby boy breathe, and heralds a future of body parts printed on command
Mashable
3D Printing Is a Matter of Life and Death
3D printing allows for speed, efficiency and customization, three factors that can make a life-altering — hopefully life-saving — difference.
Popular Mechanics
10 Innovators Who Changed the World in 2013
These brilliant engineers, designers, and dreamers captured our imagination by creating swarms of smart rescue robots, cars that drive themselves, and a rugged rover that could change the way we think about exploring the Red Planet.
Tech.eu
A Look Inside Materialise, the Belgian company 3D Printing its way into the Future of Everything
The splint that saved Kaiba came straight out of a 3D printer, using an additive manufacturing software program that was designed and developed specifically for biomedical professionals.