back to article Dutch doctors replace woman's skull with 3D-printed plastic copy

Doctors at the University Medical Center in Utrecht have saved a woman's life – by carrying out the first skull transplant using plastic parts built in a 3D printer. The unnamed 22-year-old patient was suffering from a rare condition that caused the inside of her skull to grow extra bone, which squeezed her brain. The growth …

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  1. wowfood

    Mojo jojo

    Seeing a brain in a plastic casing reminded me so much of mojo jojo from the powerpuff girls. I could just imagine some eccentric billionaire rich guy having the top of his skull replaced with a plastic tube that showed off his brain beneath.

  2. Dr Patrick J R Harkin
    Headmaster

    "by carrying out the first skull transplant using plastic parts built in a 3D printer."

    May I point out that this is an implant, not a transplant? My membership of the British Pedantic Society (soon to be renamed British Society of Pedants, as it's the members who are pedantic, not the society itself) is up for renewal.

    1. Alister

      Re: "by carrying out the first skull transplant using plastic parts built in a 3D printer."

      May I point out that this is an implant, not a transplant?

      So medically, to be a transplant, does the replacement part have to have been part of a different body first?

    2. Kubla Cant
      Headmaster

      Re: "by carrying out the first skull transplant using plastic parts built in a 3D printer."

      the British Pedantic Society ... soon to be renamed British Society of Pedants

      Expect fierce opposition from the Society of British Pedants.

  3. Paul_Murphy
    Joke

    I hope...

    That the surgeon wasn't washing his hands after and wondering where his watch had got to.

  4. Dodgy Geezer Silver badge

    Of course, for Formula 1...

    ...it really ought to be made of carbon fibre...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Of course, for Formula 1...

      For Formula 1, they'd have required the implant to be the same as everyone else's to reduce costs, so the doctor would have to buy hundreds of them to find one which fit best due to tolerance errors introduced by the sole supplier. ;)

  5. Kubla Cant

    Transparent

    I just finished reading another Reg article about a "glass brain" application.

    Now I read of a woman with an acrylic skull. Presumably if they left a window in her scalp she could do the glass brain thing without recourse to MRI.

  6. Stevie

    Bah!

    Real Science! Shower everyone concerned with praise and rewards.

    Astronomers, take note.

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