Cost less than a million, the world's first 3D print the advent of artificial eyes-3D printing-IT information

Recently, Belgium academic experts at the Hospital of the University of Leuven for a 68 year old male patient developed the artificial eye of the world's first 3D print. More importantly, this 3D printing artificial eyes (or eye) costs only € 1300 (about RMB 9580), and most of them paid for by the patient's medical insurance. As we all know, artificial eye has been for decades, why 3D printing start to this one? This is the biggest reason small demand, this implant suitable for people who are either lose eye patients.

In Leuven, every month they saw only two patients requiring artificial eyes. According to Tico social understanding, these patients with artificial eyes and no practical functions-cannot see through them, the only advantage is that it will promote the movement of muscles around the eyes, making the appearance more normal.

However, the problem is that all the artificial eye is to be handmade. Moreover, because of little demand, so that a country is often only a few specialists capable of producing these eyes. Catholic University of Leuven, the hospital was Belgium only employs one full-time manufacturing experts eye hospital, who annually about 70 different artificial eyes. It is also a very artistic work: the IRIS needs to use Freehand, to match the other eye, and to choose the correct white sclera is a very difficult task. Small blood vessels often use tiny cotton tree drive line to imitate.

Therefore, like orbital surgery Professor Ilse Mombaerts said: "the artificial eye is a luxury, and interaction with artists on their patient's new design is very important. Surgery eye doctors usually work with design eye of the artist. "The handicraft manufacture of artificial eye cost about € 1,300, if 3D printing technology to make, because the device inputs, costs remained roughly the same. Currently, they are using Materialise 3D printing systems.

Despite the cost, but as we all know, any manual to be perfect, and how the eye sockets and artificial eyes perfect matching is also a big challenge. That's why doctors hospital's eye 3D printing. Traditionally, the measurements of the orbit using an alginate mold, to go through a time consuming and required constant trial and error process, and also to orbital soft tissues of patients with exerting a lot of pressure. Today, the experts adopted a CBCT (Cone beam computation tomography) scan to make a 3D print model. According to Heavenly knowledge, CBCT in dental surgery is a very common method, because it does not have can cause injury to the patient's oral cavity model – but with Yu Yi eye manufacturing for the first time.

This 3D model by the hospital after engineers finished printing and sending to eye specialists. And the experts will use this as a reference for a specific patient hand-craft a prosthetic eye. However, the hospital's ultimate plan is to use a carbon material commonly used in dentures Direct 3D print artificial eyes. "Right now, we don't have any direct 3D print artificial eyes, but it definitely can be realized in the near future. "Mombaerts said.

成本不到万元，世界上首个3D打印义眼问世 - 3D打印 - IT资讯

近日，比利时鲁汶大学学术医院的专家们为一位68岁的男性患者开发出了世界上第一个3D打印的义眼。更重要的是，这只3D打印义眼（或者假眼）的制造成本只有1300欧元（约合人民币9580元），而且大部分由患者的医疗保险支付。众所周知，义眼几十年前就已经有了，为什么3D打印才开始用到这一块呢？这中间最大的原因是需求比较小，这种义眼的适用人群是那些不管何种原因失去眼睛的患者。

在鲁汶，他们每个月只见到有两个需要义眼的患者。据天工社了解，这些义眼并没有实际功能——患者不能通过它们看东西，唯一的好处是可以促进眼睛周围肌肉组织的运动，使患者的外貌更加正常一点。

但是，这中间的问题是，所有的义眼都需要手工制作。而且，由于需求很少，因此一个国家往往只有几个专科医生有能力制造这些假眼。鲁汶大学的这家医院是比利时唯一一家雇佣了一名专职义眼制造专家的医院，这位专家每年制造大约70个不同的义眼。它也是一种很有艺术性的工作：虹膜需要用手画，以与另一只眼睛匹配，而为巩膜选择正确的白色也是一项很有难度的任务。小血管通常使用微小的红棉花线来模仿。

因此，就像眼眶外科教授Ilse Mombaerts说的那样：“义眼是一种奢侈品，而且与艺术家的交流对患者们的新眼设计至关重要。进行手术的眼科医生通常要与设计义眼的艺术家一起工作。”这种手工艺制造的义眼成本大约为1,300欧元，如果换3D打印技术来制造的话，由于设备的投入，成本大体保持相同。目前，他们正在利用Materialise的3D打印系统。

尽管成本差不多，但是众所周知，任何手工都难以做到完美，而且如何使眼窝与义眼完美匹配也是一个很大的挑战。这也是医院的眼科医生转3D打印的原因。传统上，眼窝的测量使用的是一种藻酸盐模具，要经过一个非常耗时而且需要不断试错的过程，还要给患者眼窝部娇嫩的组织施加很大的压力。而如今，专家们通过一种CBCT（锥体束计算断层扫描）扫描来制作3D打印模型。据天工社所知，CBCT是牙科手术中一个很常见的辅助手段，因为它不用造成损伤就能为患者的口腔进行建模——但是用于义眼的制造还是第一次。

这种模型由医院的3D工程师打印完毕之后，发送给义眼专家。然后该专家会以此为参照为特定患者手工制造一个义眼。不过，该医院的最终打算是使用一种假牙中常用的碳材料直接3D打印义眼。“目前，我们还不能直接3D打印义眼，但是在不久的将来这一点肯定能够实现。”Mombaerts教授说。