Man Saves Wife's Sight By 3D Printing Her Tumor 164
An anonymous reader writes: Michael Balzer, a former software engineer and Air Force technical instructor, found himself unsatisfied with a doctor's diagnosis of a small tumor behind his wife's left eye. Balzer had recently become proficient at creating 3D models, so he asked the doctor for the raw medical imaging data and took a look himself. In addition to correcting a later misdiagnosis, Balzer 3D printed models of his wife's cranium and helped neurosurgeons plan a procedure to remove the tumor, instead of waiting to see how it developed, like previous doctors had recommended. During the procedure, surgeons found the tumor was beginning to entangle her optic nerve, and even a six-month wait would have had dire consequences for her eyesight.
Medical researchers like Dr. Michael Patton believe this sort of prototyping will become "the new normal" in a very short time. He says, "What you can now do through 3D printing is like what you're able to do in the software world: Rapid iteration, fail fast, get something to market quickly. You can print the prototypes, and then you can print out model organs on which to test the products. You can potentially obviate the need for some animal studies, and you can do this proof of concept before extensive patient trials are conducted.
Medical researchers like Dr. Michael Patton believe this sort of prototyping will become "the new normal" in a very short time. He says, "What you can now do through 3D printing is like what you're able to do in the software world: Rapid iteration, fail fast, get something to market quickly. You can print the prototypes, and then you can print out model organs on which to test the products. You can potentially obviate the need for some animal studies, and you can do this proof of concept before extensive patient trials are conducted.
This could be fun.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Most medical imaging equipment will dump out a DICOM file, which, IIRC, can be translated into the more typical 3D formats. So pretty much everybody that gets a CT or MRI could get the data. Then you just have to set up the printer.
I could see this as a growth industry for hospitals (hey, we need the money) - instead of getting some miserable little CD with your image, you get a plastic skeleton (or plastic squishy part). Coffee table discussion item or new D&D figurine?
Re:This could be fun.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This could be fun.... (Score:5, Funny)
Cool - now can they turn a skull MRI of some guy I dislike, and turn it into a goblet?
*That* would be hilarious (okay, maybe I'm really odd for wanting to drink from the skulls of my enemies, even if only on a semi-metaphorical level, but...)
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If you can find him while he's sleeping, you can make a goblet out of his head without having to make him get a scan.
1) Install "123D Make" on your cell phone
2) Take as many pics as you can from as many angles as you can with the sound off (up to 70) and wait for it to process (and hope it processes well... photogrammetry still isn't a mature tech)
3) If it works well then download the 3d model it produces.
4) Open it in a 3d modeller
5) Fill in any gaps
6) Replace the area that you couldn't image (the back of
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1. Apply knife to throat. As our Muslim brethren have shown us, even a small knife will do. You just need to make sure he's soundly asleep...
2. Bring your new swag home, and finish the work with a spoon, then let it dry and polish
Re:This could be fun.... (Score:5, Insightful)
And knowing the medical industry, you will be charged $5500 for the printing and $9100 for the "medical 3d modeling specialist" that stands there watching it print.
And the 3D printer will have to be FDA approved and cost well over 22 million dollars.
Re:This could be fun.... (Score:5, Insightful)
And the 3D printer will have to be FDA approved and cost well over 22 million dollars.
Not quite... Since it's not actually PART of the imager itself, it needn't be FDA approved. However, if it were .... yes. We had a generic hard drive fail on our CT. Just a typicall 400 GB SATA drive. We had literally dozens of them hanging around but we couldn't use it because they were not special FDA approved generic SATA hard drives. No special firmware needed - the console for the CT runs a GE version of Linux (you can see this as it boots). All the drive did was hold the images temporarily. It couldn't kill the patient unless you threw it at them. But we had to shut the machine down for 48 hours until they could FexEx a drive to Anchorage and commercial jet it in.
So, we'd probably only charge $2000 for the gizmo (the specialist time would be included since they are not a doctor - you can only add special charges for doctors).
See, you feel better already.
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I assume that the HDD was drawn in because it was unlucky enough to be an internal part; but with, say, something like this unit [hubspot.net], which can burn CDs, transfer to USB devices, or connect to an ethernet network, do you need magic FDA CD-R blanks and flash drives, or is it just things considered 'integral' to the system(even if logically speaking they are
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Often I think it comes less down to the FDA and more to the interpretation. If you are a hospital using a device that comes with a certification from a vendor saying that you have to buy their drives to maintain certification, a few hundred bucks extra isn't worth the risk of it not being a bluff.
When I was working for a hospital we had a box running an ancient version of rhel (AS 2.1 if I remember) that the vendor swore could not be upgraded or security patched because of fda certs. What did we do? We made
Re:This could be fun.... (Score:4, Informative)
My wife recently went in for an ultrasound, and the machine clearly booted up Windows XP. I'm sure they can't install updates it without it being a certified upgrade, so they do nothing.
Meanwhile, whatever hackers are finding their ways into the hospital's network probably aren't quite so fussy about the certification of their malware.
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Yeah, I wasn't worried about her safety, only that all the hospital's systems are vulnerable because they have these malware infection hosting devices rolling around on carts.
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I can only speak to IT software since I am a software developer, but I worked for many years in the field writing both practice management (scheduling, claims processing, etc) and clinical (IHEs, patient records, RX) software. The way it worked at the time is that you basically told the FDA if you wanted to be regulated. i.e. it was up to the company to
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How does the FDA draw the line between 'must be approved' and 'not our problem' for devices that connect to a greater or lesser degree to other equipment?
The FDA itself, believe it or not, is actually pretty reasonable on that specific issue.
For example:
do you need magic FDA CD-R blanks and flash drives
If the device specifications that the vendor wrote and documented and validated, specified a specific brand and model of CD-R blank as being validated. Then you need that brand and model of CD-R blank to be v
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It doesn't hurt that it creates a revenue stream being able to supply that particular model at an inflated price.
I think that is really the reason for it. Computer manufacturers are notorious for this. We had a critical server down with a failed network card. Compaq tech looked inside, said "That's not a Compaq-brand hard drive in bay 3, I can't touch this machine. Take it out and generate another service call." Three hours later he was back and replaced the NIC with a Compaq-branded card that cost t
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To which I would have said that it's up to you, the manufacturer or it's representative, to prove that the use of an "unauthorized" hard drive caused the NIC to fail. It's just like using non-OEM parts or fluids in a car for a repair, it doesn't void the warranty if the non-OEM part didn't contribute to the failure that otherwise would have been covered.
All this presumes that you're in the US jurisdiction and that it was an actual warranty and not just a service contract people thing are warranty. FTC info [ftc.gov]
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Same thing applies in the EU, even for service contracts.
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Re:This could be fun.... (Score:4, Interesting)
And the 3D printer will have to be FDA approved and cost well over 22 million dollars.
Not quite... Since it's not actually PART of the imager itself, it needn't be FDA approved. However, if it were .... yes. We had a generic hard drive fail on our CT. Just a typicall 400 GB SATA drive. We had literally dozens of them hanging around but we couldn't use it because they were not special FDA approved generic SATA hard drives. No special firmware needed - the console for the CT runs a GE version of Linux (you can see this as it boots). All the drive did was hold the images temporarily. It couldn't kill the patient unless you threw it at them. But we had to shut the machine down for 48 hours until they could FexEx a drive to Anchorage and commercial jet it in.
So, we'd probably only charge $2000 for the gizmo (the specialist time would be included since they are not a doctor - you can only add special charges for doctors).
See, you feel better already.
If physicians are using the 3D printed model to plan their surgery, how could it not require approval? If the printer sometimes misprints by a mm that could make the difference between a successful surgery and accidentally severing an important nerve, so it seems that the manufacturer would need to test and certify a printer to ensure that it creates accurate models, otherwise they have no assurance that whatever cheap 3D printer the hospital buys at Walmart prints accurately with their software.
The FDA regulates computer monitors used to view medical imaging, so I don't see why they wouldn't regulate 3D printers used to "print" that same imaging data.
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It would be cheaper to just print 7 times on 7 different printers. All seven ok? Sounds good, go with it.
Whatever happened to the idea of voting logic?
How do you accurately compare 7 different 3D models that may differ only in some small detail out of thousands of small details. Scan them all in a 3D scanner? If you're going to do that, then why not only print one and scan it for accuracy?
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Couldn't you just weigh them?
I just weighed them, here's the weights: 356g, 355g, 357g, 354g, 355g, 358g, 354g.
Tell me which one has all of the critical nerves and blood vessels in the right place.
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You'd probably have been able to get away with a cheaper solution if it was the FDA approved power supply [thedailywtf.com] that went bad.
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Be active in your own medical care (Score:2)
While it's cool that this guy took the job on himself, and ended up getting much better results, this story seems to be, at least in part, "How at least one radiologist fucked it up, and the guy who luckily second guessed him."
Yeah, I think it's a reinforcement of the idea that while you might not be a professional, you generally have a lot more invested in it(it's YOUR health) than the professionals, and you have a lot more time you can spend on your specific problem than any given specialist.
I'm not saying not to listen to your doctors or take their advice. I'm saying that double checking everything is probably in your best interest.
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I can see the benefit: It's one thing to use virtual 'hands' with a 3D mesh on a two-dimensional screen, but if you're the guy who has to get in there with your hands and actually do the job? A couple of practice runs on a tactile 3D model of the real thing would make the job a hell of a lot easier when it comes time to actually do it.
If I were the patient, and it were the inside of my skull that they were getting all handsy with, I'd damned well insist on it.
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Maybe the surgeon could have manipulated models on a screen for th
Re:This could be fun.... (Score:5, Informative)
I could see this as a growth industry for hospitals (hey, we need the money)
Not really, according to 60 minutes. Hospitals have no problem getting money. They're rolling in the dough and can afford to pay their CEOs millions of dollars. So called non-profit hospitals mark up prices many times. [cbsnews.com] Really, don't fool yourself with a statement like that.
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"Non-profit" does not mean they're not paying their employees massive salaries, and never did. I don't know where people got the idea that non-profits had to pay their employees less.
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"Non-profit" does not mean they're not paying their employees massive salaries, and never did. I don't know where people got the idea that non-profits had to pay their employees less.
People confuse "non-profit" and "charity" pretty regularly, and even charities have no guarantees of reasonable salaries.
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Most medical imaging equipment will dump out a DICOM file, which, IIRC, can be translated into the more typical 3D formats.
DICOM is a magical container format that is more than capable of storing data that no one can use.
In the best case, it contains the imagery in an unencrypted format that everyone can read like JPEG or TIFF.
Because it's the medical industry, it will instead contain an encrypted blob of proprietary imagery data that can only be read by a crappy Visual Basic program that the vendor supplies.
(At least, based on my brief experience trying to get useful data out of medical devices that did provide DICOM files tha
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hospitals (hey, we need the money)
Seriously? You guys charge enough. What do you do? Pour the money down a drain?
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If hospital IT departments weren't such shitholes to work in you might be better staffed. HCA is notorious for underpaying IT staff and understaffing their department. In Anchorage they insisted on paying Lower-48 salaries, with the result that the entire IT department quit the same week. If your manager won't ask to increase head count then he's in the wrong position. If he asked and got turned down then he's working for the wrong employer, as are you.
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Actually the 'new normal' will soon be charging for those bits. Currently the data is free only because administrators don't realize that there is any actual value to it.
3D models are incredibly helpful (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not a vet student, but I did spend a night helping one study the sinuses of a large animal (they split in to large animal (farm) and small animal (pet) specialties) and some of the learning materials are a little difficult to wrap your brain around, in particular how the sinuses (voids in the skull) exist inside the skull, how they connect (or don't) and simply where they are. The brain has enough trouble understanding negative spaces, even more trouble trying to conceptualize the winding, twisting 3D negative spaces you can't ever directly view without cutting apart a skull to do so. Even then doing so only gives you half the picture, and in negative space.
There are some videos online showing the sinuses in "positive 3D space" but it's still only a reference (Everyone is different) so I would imagine having a 3D positive space model of a tumor you've never seen and can't see without cutting open someone's head would be incredibly helpful, especially since you can't just buy off the shelf reference material for human tumors like you can bovine sinuses.
Anyone else concerned? (Score:4, Interesting)
Is ist just me or is anyone else actually concerned that a have-a-go engineer can apparently quite easily achieve significantly bettr results than a team of so-called expert doctors in their own field?
Re:Anyone else concerned? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not concerned at all, he helped them to develop and use a tool they didn't understand how to use and didn't have access to previously. It's how progress is really made. Experts from two different fields find a way to work together to solve problems that neither could solve independently.
Re:Anyone else concerned? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, but if the CT software / computer is not hopeless outdated, the doctors should have been able to see at a 3D visualization and hardly had need for a 3D printed model.
Your parent is quite right, it is a scandal that the doctors missinterpreted the data and wanted to wait 6 more month to see how "it develops"
Bottom line they IM(ns)HO simply wanted to increase the costs for the insurance and hence earn kore money (at cost of the patients eye sight!)
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Well, I have two points basically:
a) the position of the tumor is *visible* in the CT and the position of the visual nerve is *known* so even if you can not distinguish the two kinds of tissues in the CTs visualization (which you should imho) then you nevertheless should know the tumor is very close or around the visual nerve
b) it can't be that the data from the CT has enough information to make a 3D print that shows the visual nerve is in danger but can not be used to visualize that fact
Regarding watch and
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Complex 3D rendering or printing, while it looks impressive, generally isn't all that usef
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Except when it turns out to NOT be unnecessary :\
So do you do ten unnecessary surgeries under the assumption one of them will turn out to be needed? Who pays, and where is the line drawn?
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Re:Anyone else concerned? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not being constrained by traditional things, having skin in the game, and having a skillset which differs from what the doctors do -- all of these combine for him to take a whack at it in a way they'd never think of.
If anything, this highlights how a breakthrough can come from an outsider.
And I bet all of a sudden a lot of medical people are saying "wait, he did what?" and "where can I get one?".
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And I bet all of a sudden a lot of medical people are saying "wait, he did what?" and "where can I get one?".
And even more patients are going to say that. Hopefully someone listens....
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I call it "approaching a problem without previously existing > polluting the outcome".
Doctors have tunnel vision sometimes. They rely on past experience (be it work- or document-based) too heavily.
With that being said, these occurrences are likely rare and a minority, statistics-wise.
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The experts of the field were most likely unaware of newer technologies that can facilitate such quick action. I'm not saying that there are not doctors out there whom are incompetent, but this isn't necessarily an example of that.
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Re:Anyone else concerned? (Score:4)
Is ist just me or is anyone else actually concerned that a have-a-go engineer can apparently quite easily achieve significantly bettr results than a team of so-called expert doctors in their own field?
RTFA please.
The description does indeed try to imply that the above is the case. But it's far from the truth, as much as internet armchair experts would like to believe.
The article itself appears to state that the problem was that 1) the initial advice was to wait, which after (appropriately) consulting with a number of experts they had done, and a followup showed progression. Even the first advice was not totally misplaced. Then what happened was that he suggested that the neurosurgeons basically invent a procedure specifically for him, and used 3D printing to create a model for them. The result was he did find someone willing to try (my guess is they refused the conventional approach) a less invasive procedure that removed 95% of the tumor. Now that may sound revolutionary, but neurosurgery is a tricky business, and depending on the tumor 95% may be equivalent to buying a little time while doing nothing at all, especially since they already knew that the tumor was growing aggressively. If the conventional approach would have had more of a chance of removing more of the tumor, possibly all of it with negative margins, that would be a far more definitive approach. Doctors aren't always right, but if you get a sufficiently experienced expert opinion, it'll usually reflect what is possible to do currently, with a reasonable margin of both safety and success.
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Nope, because those experts are not as good as everyone makes them out to be.
Their only advantage is they were rich and paid for college. They are not any smarter than a guy working for $12.00 in a foundry fixing a welder.
Re: Anyone else concerned? (Score:3)
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New doctors dont have decades of experience. Unless we are now transplanting brains of old doctors into the heads of new ones.
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Their only advantage is they were rich and paid for college. They are not any smarter than a guy working for $12.00 in a foundry fixing a welder.
Except for their experience. And perhaps the fact that they may have been smart enough to get into and pass medical school in the first place, while the welder might not have.
But then, we have need for all sorts of jobs and all sorts of skillsets.
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Education != smart.
for an example please look in the nearest mirror.
Re:Anyone else concerned? (Score:5, Interesting)
There are plenty of examples of desperate patients nudging their doctors in the right direction after doing some self-diagnosis and research online. There are also some examples of extraordinary breakthroughs in medical science made by engineers with no medical background.
Re:Anyone else concerned? (Score:5, Interesting)
but doctors act a lot more like technicians than scientists or researchers.
Doctors are much more like technicians. You don't want doctors "experimenting" on you unless you really, really need that. Physicians are typically not brought up in a 'science' environment (question assumptions, learning how to research a topic, critical thinking.) Doctors are brought up in 'cram mode'. Dump a lot of into down your throat. You're expected to believe it. They are increasingly taught to 'follow the protocol' which amazingly, is what technicians do.
Yes, there are 'physician scientists' but they aren't treating the majority of patients and you don't want them to be ('hey that looks interesting, what happens when I tug on it?').
This case is interesting as the husband of the patient kicked the docs out of 'technician' mode. And, of course, used a 3D printer.
ALWAYS ask your doc questions about stuff you don't understand.
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but doctors act a lot more like technicians than scientists or researchers.
Doctors are much more like technicians. You don't want doctors "experimenting" on you unless you really, really need that.
To clarify the doctors or physicians you are referring to medical practitioners in medical parlance. There is two additional medical "communities," which are linked, the medical teaching and research specialties though two these tend to be more intertwined. In many cases they share hospitals, labs, institutions.
Physicians are typically not brought up in a 'science' environment (question assumptions, learning how to research a topic, critical thinking.) Doctors are brought up in 'cram mode'. Dump a lot of into down your throat. You're expected to believe it. They are increasingly taught to 'follow the protocol' which amazingly, is what technicians do.
That is a gross over-generalization. A good physician is trained to be scientifically minded, to take careful observations (utilizing medical testing), question assumptions for faulty assumptions an
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Re: Anyone else concerned? (Score:2)
Re:Anyone else concerned? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not at all. A technically minded person who's entire career is solving problems throws several hundred hours at solving a problem vs a doctor who is allotted 2-6 hours to solve the same problem and has a hundred other patients who are clamoring for his time. Which do you think would solve a complex problem?
I encounter it every day as a professional engineer who designs buildings. I get $600 (about 4 hours of time) to solve the entire wind and seismic resisting system on a small building and if you decide the entire first floor will be all glass I'll tell you you can't do it. If you're an engineer (but not necessarily a structural one) and decide to design a system yourself and you spend 400 hours on it there's a good chance you'll come up with a solution. For $40,000 in your time, you've solved problem worth $600 on the open market.
And, FWIW, I can solve that kind of problem in under 40 hours - maybe $6000 - but if you offer me $600 to solve the problem, I'm going to tell you that it can't be done [for that money].
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...except the difference here is that we're talking about someone's life not just a few bucks, and also the doctors didn't say they couldn't do it for the money, they misdiagnosed it the first time, then just said they couldn't do it at all.
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That's just it. Nearly 200,000 people die every. single. day. Doctors have patients die all the time because some things can't be fixed, or can't be fixed within the constraints of "regular" medicine. One of those constraints is money. I didn't see where he took her to a clinic and offered the best surgeon in the world $10,000,000 to attempt the surgery. (And, remember, all medical procedures are just probabilities of repair not guarantees.) Because he probably would have gotten a different answer.
And, yes,
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You may want to read Richard Feynman's "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" [google.com] (Or watch the movie "Infinity" [imdb.com], with Matthew Broderick as the famous bongo player if that's more your thing) for another example of this. Being able to apply research skills isn't something unique to any one field, and having only one patient to worry about can make things a lot clearer.
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Its just you.
He could have just as easily caused his wife her sight by finding doctors that weren't as good as the originals and the originals having the right course of treatment.
Doctors practice medicine. Notice the words I used, PRACTICE medicine. They ALL get it wrong, A LOT.
Don't think for a second that this guy saved the day with his skill alone, he got lucky.
Neither the summary nor the article gives enough detail to make a medical decision and a 3d object printed isn't immensely more useful for dia
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Yes -- one would hope the specialists would have the latitude and motivation to research options to get the best answer possible; and no -- this was her husband, with a personally vested interest in the accuracy of the diagnosis of a single patient, not just any have-a-go engineer.
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You know what they call the guy who graduates dead last in his class at medical school? Doctor.
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Yes, absolutely I'm concerned. The radiologist got it wrong in assessing the tumor to have grown. That's so important to a cancer patient as to be an unpardonable sin.
But given the hodgepodge of modern medical testing, it's not terribly surprising. Clinical CT or MR images often have low resolution or voxels that are anisotropic (usually, longer head-to-toe than side-to-side). When comparing two images with differing resolutions, voxel shapes, or subject poses, two images can be difficult to compare.
Tha
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In this case, he brought knowledge outside their field-of-expertise to help them (not replace them) in making a decision. This is good.
If you want to be scared, look into the origin of Lorenzo's Oil.
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3d printing irrelevant (Score:5, Insightful)
It sounds to me like the actual 3d printing was less important than the 3d model. I'm not sure what the first doctor's problem was. Usually an MRI gives you a detailed model that you can look at from multiple angles. You don't just measure the size from one point of view. That doesn't even make sense.
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I'm not sure what the first doctor's problem was
The doctor probably wasn't smart enough to sufficient interpret the scan to guide the surgeons. Most doctors aren't too smart... :(
Re:3d printing irrelevant (Score:4, Interesting)
The key to success here might have been simply the push for a second opinion. People don't understand that doctors often base their decisions on best practices, and in this case maybe the normal thing for an oncologist would be wait and see how the tumor developed, working out better for 99% of cases. Getting an actual neurosurgeon to look into it was probably the biggest thing, and the 3d print was only useful in catching their attention.
Granted, 99% of people who tried something like this would have the neurosurgeon look at it, pat them in the head for a good job on the print and then get sent back, as that's the right thing to do. Those are not newsworthy, but that doesn't mean this exception will be the new rule.
I'd bet on VR to be more useful for doctors as you can see the results right away instead of waiting for the print though.
What it takes to justify tech toy purchase to wife (Score:3)
Interesting (Score:2)
I'm glad her tumor was not inside her eye.... I've lost most of the vision in my right eye after radiation treatment for a tumor inside the eye. My Ocular Oncologist did extensive drawings of my retina and the tumor. I'm not sure MRI technology could have mapped it out well enough to make a reliable model. I also had to deal with the fun of having an ultrasound probe run over the surface of my eye to get a better idea of the size of the tumor. That was 4 years ago, and luckily, the ocular melanoma had not m
rubbish (Score:5, Informative)
this entire story is nonsense, speaking as a qualified medical physicist in radiotherapy with decades of experience. First of all, for him to make a 3D model of a tumour, he is having to decide based on CT and/or MRI data what is or isnt the tumour, which by the way you might have noticed is the same information from the CT and/or MR scan that qualified radiologists and oncologists look at, and using treatment diagnosis and planning software (including auto segmentation techniques). So unless this guy suddenly read a book one night and became a fucking oncologist, he didnt pick out SHIT from a CT data set that a qualified oncologist "missed". Nor did he tell surgeons "how to get at" the tumour in a way that implies that was the holdup, like he figured it out while people who work with this for decades didnt get it.
ah now wait a minute, halfway down the article
"So although the first doctors told them to wait, Balzer and Scott sent the MRI results to a handful of neurologists around the country. Nearly all of them agreed that Scott needed surgery."
correct. OTHER QUALIFIED DOCTORS diagnosed the issue. Not some fucking clown with a 3D printer.
"The tumor had grown substantially, which indicated a far more grave condition than was initially diagnosed. But back at home, Balzer used Photoshop to layer the new DICOM files on top of the old images, and realized that the tumor hadn’t grown at all — the radiologist had just measured from a different point on the image."
this makes no sense at all and has either been misreported, or he went to a pretend hospital staffed by retards. NO INFORMATiON WHATSOEVER came to light from a 3D printed model of the SAME FUCKING DATA thats in the image. If someone measured wrong on a scan thats an error, just go back and review the images, or send them off again for a 2nd opinion rather than waste your time printing a fucking useless model
he sent a 3d model /image round when instead all he had to do was send the SOURCE DICOM files to these other doctors, which would have resulted in the exact same solution.
Fuck, every single time you see a story in your own field and realise its utter bullshit, you realise that ALL stories must be fucking bullshit, its just that you cant check up on stuff youre not involved with so easily
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I see somebody feels professionally threatened...
Soon surgery... (Score:2)
> I see somebody feels professionally threatened... ...will be offered by garage hobby doctors at cut-throat prices! Ask your 3D printing neighbor for details.
Is that what your comment wants to say? You are not even funny.
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Whoa there buddy. Maybe you should see a nice psychiatrist or perhaps a bartender.
This is SLASHDOT (says so right on the top). TFA has only transient and extremely limited interest to the vast majority of people and bots here (Hi Bennett!). It really makes little difference if this was reported in Nature or the National Enquirer. Nobody really believes anything happened remotely as described.
You must be new here.
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Whoa there buddy. Maybe you should see a nice psychiatrist or perhaps a bartender.
This is SLASHDOT (says so right on the top).
Nobody needs real psychiatrists any more. Using some robotics components and a 3D printer you can easily print your own psychiatrist at home these days.
Now the bartender.... that is a completely different story.
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this entire story is nonsense, speaking as a qualified medical physicist in radiotherapy with decades of experience. First of all, for him to make a 3D model of a tumour, he is having to decide based on CT and/or MRI data what is or isnt the tumour, which by the way you might have noticed is the same information from the CT and/or MR scan that qualified radiologists and oncologists look at, and using treatment diagnosis and planning software (including auto segmentation techniques). So unless this guy suddenly read a book one night and became a fucking oncologist, he didnt pick out SHIT from a CT data set that a qualified oncologist "missed". Nor did he tell surgeons "how to get at" the tumour in a way that implies that was the holdup, like he figured it out while people who work with this for decades didnt get it.
ah now wait a minute, halfway down the article
"So although the first doctors told them to wait, Balzer and Scott sent the MRI results to a handful of neurologists around the country. Nearly all of them agreed that Scott needed surgery."
correct. OTHER QUALIFIED DOCTORS diagnosed the issue. Not some fucking clown with a 3D printer.
"The tumor had grown substantially, which indicated a far more grave condition than was initially diagnosed. But back at home, Balzer used Photoshop to layer the new DICOM files on top of the old images, and realized that the tumor hadn’t grown at all — the radiologist had just measured from a different point on the image."
this makes no sense at all and has either been misreported, or he went to a pretend hospital staffed by retards. NO INFORMATiON WHATSOEVER came to light from a 3D printed model of the SAME FUCKING DATA thats in the image. If someone measured wrong on a scan thats an error, just go back and review the images, or send them off again for a 2nd opinion rather than waste your time printing a fucking useless model
he sent a 3d model /image round when instead all he had to do was send the SOURCE DICOM files to these other doctors, which would have resulted in the exact same solution.
Fuck, every single time you see a story in your own field and realise its utter bullshit, you realise that ALL stories must be fucking bullshit, its just that you cant check up on stuff youre not involved with so easily
IANAD, and appreciate your analysis of the article, and generally agree with the points you make about the article. Articles are written by journalists that generally the reports end up coming out like a school yard game of telephone. But I think the 3d printed representation of the tumor may have been useful. I myself find physical objects and representations much easier to understand and comprehend than virtual equivalents.
Which shows the failure of capitalist medicine (Score:5, Insightful)
Doctors make no profit out of difficult diagnoses. They have a business to run. They're a mill. Get 'em in. Get 'em out. If it looks like something even slightly nonstandard, shove them off to another specialist so that they can bear the cost, and liability. That neurologist isn't going to bother to read the journals, or keep up with technology, or make any extra effort at all. He's got 25 other people to see today and he's already running late and there's a hiring meeting in 20 minutes because the single good support employee his practice has is threatening to quit, and there's another meeting with the lawyer this afternoon about the tumors he missed because he was just too rushed that day.
Socialized medicine has its own problems, but at least you can get a doctor focused on medicine.
Re:Which shows the failure of capitalist medicine (Score:4, Insightful)
Canada has socialized medicine. Family doctors are paid a flat amount per patient visit by the government.
I'll let you guess how motivating a difficult diagnosis is for a doctor here vs "My timmy has a cold!"
Your same failure is a failure in any environment where people are paid for their labour. About the only case where it doesn't fail that I can think of is communism.
And the family doctor (if you have one - I don't) will quickly refer you to a specialist because that's the right thing to do. Doesn't waste your time or his/her time. Or if it's serious, go to the ER and you'll see a specialist the same day. And if you need a doctor for follow-up care, isn't it better to have a specialist doing it rather than the delays associated with a G.P. playing broken telephone with the specialists?
I have 4 different specialists who I see on a regular basis, and if something crops up between regular visits, I just have to make a phone call. They answer my questions, they describe what's going on, and I think they're all great.
It's funny because this is SO in contrast to the experiences of some of the people I know who have nothing to do but complain about their doctors. Same Canadian system, even the same hospitals, but you wouldn't believe it listening to them. I think a big part of that problem is their attitude. They go to the doctor and they already have it in their heads what the doctor should do, and if the doctor doesn't, "they're crap." Me, when I go, I say "I think I need your help", ask questions in a non-confrontational way, thank them, and follow their directions. Just like I talk to and thank the technicians, the resident doctors, the nurses, the medical secretaries, and the receptionists.
Attitudes matter. I've seen people get mad because we had to wait a few hours because our doctor was called out. The reason - emergency surgery on a newborn's eyes. Me, I figure "Hey take all the time you need."
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Canada has socialized medical insurance. The doctors themselves are capitalists. Their incentive is to simply see more patients per unit time rather than charge more dollars per patient.
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I live in Canada where we have socialized medicine. Going to a doctor will only get you results if you either A) have a broken bone and need it set (six hours from now) B) want to have blood tests and have a dotor who is actually willing to sign the form C) want to hear, "Go home and rest for a few days."
For anything else, you are dreaming. Forget about actually finding a doctor to look into something or run additional tests. It won't happen.
The problem is because it's perceived as "free", you get people taking up time insisting on ridiculous things like antibiotics for a viral infection. Doctor says no, they get angry and go to another doctor. Same with pain - they'll doctor shop (and report increasing severity of symptoms) until a doctor finally prescribes them hydromorphone. They bring it to the pharmacist, who knows they're a crackhead with a long history of legal and illegal drug abuse, calls the doctor, and it gets substituted with a pla
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Oddly, I actually agree here. If I had to enforce anything that I though would help, it would be price transparency and published outcomes. That would also reduce the "run them through the mill" problem. Outcomes here can get pretty lousy.
Open source medicine, the time has come (Score:2)
Full circle (Score:2)
The idea of "open source" software was inspired by academic research. Most health research still runs that way and is published. The pharma stuff is mostly "product development" which is based on some open research somewhere.
First thing they will fix. (Score:2)
He’s also become more focused on education, and hosts a podcast called All Things 3D, on which he often invites doctors to speak. Recently, he organized a free seminar on 3D in medicine. “My big message now is that this stuff is out there, and a lot of it is free,” he says. “The first thing is getting the word out that your hands aren’t tied. Your buddy’s got a 3D printer? Use it.”
The medical industry is horrified. I could hear the CEOs of healthcare industry barking to their minions: "It is Free? as in beer?, what the hell? This is a situation that must be rectified. Got all the buzz words, 3D printing, rapid prototyping, minimally invasive, micro robotic, if it costs less than 1 million dollars to treat this condition, we are leaving money on the table. People get to work. Do not have come back till you have patents all the way to moon and back. We will not rest until we close ever
Hey another medical speciality (Score:3)
"Imaging printer technologist" that can charge me $1000/hr to generate 3d models of my tumors.. I don't think most doctors or hospitals will let you DIY.
I'll take that baby in the store front... (Score:4, Interesting)
3D imaging + 3D printing = missing bone parts (Score:3)
About two years ago I was at a presentation by a surgeon who used 3d imaging to produce a 3d model of a partially missing bone and a complete symmetric bone. He mirrored the model of the symmetric bone to approximate the part of the missing bone. The part was printed on 3d printer and used to prepare a mold for the appropriate alloy for the implant.
In Sci Fi Story: Savage Empire by Jean Lorrah (Score:2)
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And the reason this happens, is because doctors so often can't come up with a fix (See article). Seriously, we have a medical system that has, after centuries, been unable to cure many cancers, arthritis, obesity, diabetes, etc. I suffered from insomnia for years. The approved drugs were all crap, pretty much. I now rotate a series of herbs with different modes of action, never repeating them for more than one night in a row. Result? No addiction problems and a sound sleep. Tell me how our current medical r
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It's a bit
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I think that's the old normal. It wasn't until about 1900 that having a physician present actually improved your chance of survival, in many previous eras it would have increased your chance of dying instead. (George Washington was bled to death by his doctors, for example.)