Doctors in Almaty have performed a complex surgery on a man who suffered a severe traumatic brain injury after falling from a height of more than five meters, Almaty.tv reported.
The doctors reconstructed the man’s frontal bone using a 3D-printed implant.
Assylbek Masygapov from Ekibastuz was injured on the job. The fall left him with an extensive skull defect, leaving his brain with almost no protection from bone tissue.
In May, doctors implanted a custom-made frontal bone implant. The surgery lasted about six hours.
Neurosurgeon Chingiz Shashkin told reporters that the case was difficult because of the large defect, which affected not only the skull vault but also the base of the skull.
«Conventional techniques, in which plates are shaped during surgery, were not applicable. Previously, we used imported implants to treat similar patients, but now a Kazakhstani company manufactures them,» he said.
The implant was custom-made for the patient. First, a CT scan is performed, after which the data is used to create an accurate 3D model of the damaged area. The model is then used to produce the implant on a 3D printer. In this case, the implant was made of bone cement.
In addition to reconstructing the skull, the doctors had to reconstruct the orbit.
«The patient was at risk of blindness and possibly losing the eyeball itself. We shaped the orbit from both the outside and inside and implanted the bone implant. We shaped the orbital bones, allowing the eyeballs to be properly aligned,» ophthalmologist Aleksey Kravtsov told the channel.
Procedures using custom 3D-printed implants are still relatively rare in Kazakhstan. The technology allows doctors to create structures that closely match each patient’s anatomy.
