Osteoid 3D Printed Cast Would Almost Be Worth the Injury

Almost! I said almost! Nothing is worth breaking a bone, really. Trust me on this… if you’ve been around for a while you know the ridiculous number of times I’ve broken in the last few years. However, since it seems to be what I do, I am very interested in this new cast! If I could’ve had healing time reduced by up to 40% on this last injury, I would’ve been back to work by now. So while I wouldn’t want to get injured on purpose, if it happens again I really want one of these casts.

Deniz Karasahin (a Turkish student) just won the 2014 Golden A’Design Award for Osteoid, his prototype 3D printed cast. The first thing you notice is its open design, which means there is actually airflow to the affected body part, which in turn means less itching, less irritation, and avoidance of that unpleasant odor that develops inside regular plaster casts. I bet you could even shower without having to seal it in a plastic bag! Then comes the best part: It uses ultrasound pulses to help heal broken bones up to 40% faster! Ultrasound is very good at healing broken bones, but it requires the leads to be placed directly on skin so it’s not often practical. Thus the open design of the Osteoid cast, allowing the leads to be placed directly over the fracture to speed healing.

Plus, it looks cool as heck, doesn’t it? It’s a little comic book character, a little Transformer, a little whatever fantasy character you can think of. And because it’s 3D printed, the Osteoid can be custom-created to fit each person far better than the traditional method of wrapping layers of water-soaked, plaster-embedded strips of cotton around and around your limb. It also eliminates the need to hold the cast away from surfaces until it completely cures, since the 3D printing cures as it goes.

I’m probably too excited about the Osteoid cast. And it’s only a prototype right now. But since it has real-world applications that could be in use immediately, it would not shock or amaze me to see this or something maybe tweaked a little bit from this replacing traditional casts soon.

Source: DigitalTrends