At Meyer in Florence, a child’s nose was reconstructed thanks to 3D printing

And to his twin brother whose nose the doctors copied. Mother: "Now he says he's really like his other classmates"

FLORENCE – At the Meyer pediatric clinic in Florence, a child’s nose was reconstructed thanks to 3D printing and his twin brother, from whom the doctors ‘copied’ the new nose. It is the story of a 5-year-old boy, successfully operated on by the Meyer Irccs team of surgeons, led by Dr. Flavio Facchini, specialist in plastic and reconstructive surgery. Born premature, at his 28th birthday week of pregnancy, the baby was missing the nasal pyramid due to a perinatal complication. In fact, his face was without a nose, with only two small holes for breathing. The parents turned to Meyer to begin reconstruction as soon as possible, “to avoid the child from the great emotional suffering and social difficulties that he would have encountered without timely intervention”, they explain from the hospital.

Thus, usingmodern 3D scanning technologies “it was possible to acquire the geometry of the twin’s face”. The shape of the nose was used to design and print instruments to assist the surgeon: thanks to 3D technology, ‘templates’ were printed which, just as if they were cutting templates, were used to remove fragments of the child’s costal cartilage with very high precision, making the operation as less invasive as possible.These fragments were assembled, a bit like the pieces of a puzzle, to build the bony and cartilaginous scaffolding of the nasal pyramid, subsequently covered with flaps skin samples taken from the child’s forehead and mucous tissue.

THE INTERVENTIONS ARE PERFECTLY SUCCESSFUL

Not only that: again using 3D images of the brother’s face, a transparent sterile 3D mask was also created, which during the operation allowed us to verify the perfect correspondence of the dimensions. The The first operation lasted over 7 hours, followed by a second finishing operation: both were successful, the little one is fine, he is already at home and has returned to nursery school.

“From the first contact we had with Dr. Facchini and his team we had the perception of being able to totally rely on Meyer”, says the mother. “We found incredible availability and humanity, they accompanied us during the intervention with periodic meetings, supporting us and answering all our questions.Everything went very well, this meeting with Meyer gave back to the our child self-confidence and the hope of a normal life, like that of his twin. Looking at himself now, he says he is really like his little brother and his companions”.

MUM: “NOW SAY SHE’S TO BE TRULY LIKE HIS LITTLE BROTHER AND HIS COMPANIONS”

All this was possible thanks to the collaboration between Meyer surgeons and T3Ddy, the laboratory supported by the Meyer Foundation, coordinated by professor Monica Carfagni for Unifi and by engineer Kathleen McGreevy for Meyer, dedicated precisely to the introduction of innovative 3D technologies in clinical practice. In the room, together with Facchini, there was the pediatric surgeon Alessandra Martin, as well as anesthetists and nurses, the latter trained with an ad hoc course in preparation for operations of this type.