Canada: 1st medical 3D modelling for prosthetic limbs launched in Ottawa Hospital

The 3D printing program, the first based in a Canadian hospital, is a partnership with the University of Ottawa.

Dr. Frank Rybicki, chief of medical imaging at the Ottawa Hospital, said the hospital's new program was about helping patients with the best ideas.

"3D printing has been an emerging technology for some time in other fields, such as aerospace or the automotive field, and now it's coming to medicine," he said, CBCNews reports said.

David Chasse, is one of the first people to try a 3D-printed prosthetic from the new program.

After a motorcycle crash he had been left with only his thumb on his left hand.

Chasse said before his new prosthetic he found it difficult to apply the right pressure to grab a water bottle, but with his new prosthetic it was easier to grip the bottle.

"I'm able to grab things," Chasse said. "I have everyday trouble grabbing just about anything, even with my other prosthetic” adding that this new technology would make the grip much better.

Chasse said his new prosthetic cost just $200 compared to the old hand which cost him $3,200 and that this would be affordable to people who did not have insurance. 

When Sebastian Chavarria, a six-year-old Ottawa boy received his first 3D printed prosthetic hand from the university's biomedical engineering program last year it proved to be less durable

"It's because the other one was broken, so I got a new one," Chavarria said, after flexing the fingers on his new red-and-blue Spider-Man hand.

The new technology which was much cheaper was also easer to replace Chavarria's hand as he grew or if it got damaged by child's play.

(Reported by Asha Bajaj, Image of Ottawa hospital: Wikipedia)