On December 22nd of 2023, a Vietnamese patient underwent hours-long surgery in order to remove part of his pelvis and femur, as per the usual treatment for bone cancer. What was special here was that the bone was replaced with 3D-printed replicas, to restore the shape and function of the parts that were removed. A long time before this surgery, [Mr. Le Dinh Thuan] was diagnosed with lung cancer, for which he received surgery. Yet not long after this surgery it was discovered due to sudden hip pain that the cancer had spread to one hip joint, which is quite uncommon, but requires that the affected bone is removed. This replacement with a prosthetic was a first for cancer treatments in Vietnam.

This kind of hip prosthesis is still quite new, as noted by [Seong-Hwan Woo, MD, et al.] in a 2020 review article in Hip & Pelvis. The major advantage of a 3D printed part that uses scan data from the patient’s body is obviously that the fit and thus long-term comfort are much better. The titanium prosthetic was designed and tested at the Vietnamese hospital, before the design was sent to Germany to have it printed there. Thanks to the hollow honeycomb structure, it’s very light, while allowing existing bone cells to grow onto the structure. Only a total of 5 screws were needed for the pelvis section, which is a reduction from existing designs.

Although hip replacements are fairly common, the use of 3D printing there is also quite a new frontier, as noted by [Viktor Krebs, MD] of the Cleveland Clinic in an article. If half the pelvis also has to be replaced as in the case of [Le Dinh Thuan], that just increases the benefits of a highly customized 3D printed solution. We definitely hope that he makes a full recovery with complete remission, while this technology can go on to benefit countless others with bone cancers.