Friday, May 24, 2013: Kaiba, a 20 months old baby suffered from a very rare medical condition called tracheobronchomalacia. He is one among the few cases of the condition as it affects only one in 2,200 babies. Most also get out of this condition by the time they attain the age of 3.
For Kaiba, many doctors gave up hope and even said that his chances of getting out of the hospital alive would be a miracle but it happened. More miraculous is the fact that the thing that saved the baby is a piece of tiny bioresorbable printed splint from a 3D printer machine.
Prior to the operation, the baby suffered from breathing problems and his bronchus somehow blocked the flow of air into the lungs. His parents April and Bryan Gionfriddo stood helpless and prayed that the general prediction didn’t hit their family. The final hope was, however, found at University of Michigan where this tiny bioresorbable device was under development. Kaiba’s doctors got in touch with Glenn Green and this was the last thing that one could try.
According to Green, Kaiba suffered from a severe case of the disease, a case that only 10 per cent of tracheobronchomalacia patients suffer from. When this occurs, a normal cold is enough to kill the bay. In Kaiba’s case, the family was returning home from a restaurant and when they reached home, the baby was all blue. He was six weeks old then.
Green and his team had to work fast and obtained all necessary permissions from the department of Food and Drug Administration. A tracheal splint was implanted and sewn around Kaiba’s airway and this material was polycaprolactone, a polymer. A laser 3D printer produced the splint.
Within 21 days, Kaiba’s condition was stable and he was removed from the ventilator chamber. It will take around 3 years for his trachea to get normal.
