This case was presented by Professor Rydholm, Skane University Hospital, Lund, Sweden
A Swedish girl was facing a lifetime in a wheelchair because of a congenital disease leaving her with a severely deformedleft hip. With the 3D-printed Mobelife aMace® implant andvirtual planning in Materialise’s Mimics and 3-matic software,she is now pain-free, walking without crutches.
Reconstructing the Pelvis Deformation in Mimics
The 15-year old Swedish girl was suffering from Von Recklinghausen’s disease, a congenital disease causing a severe skeletal deformation of the left hip. The neurofibroma destroying her pelvis was surgically removed, but after a femur fracture her situation worsened, forcing her to be home educated for the next two years. Her doctors initially saw 
very limited or no treatment options and she was looking at a lifetime in a wheelchair.
Professor Rydholm from Skane University Hospital in Lund contacted Materialise subsidiary Mobelife to design a custom acetabular implant. The team of engineers imported and segmented the patient’s CT scan in Mimics to reconstruct the defect and analyze the pre-operative situation.
Based on anatomical templates, surgical planning was made directly on the patient’s anatomy. This involved placing landmark points and determining the position of the acetabular cup and flanges to secure the cup in the best position, with the surgeon’s blessing.
Designing a Patient-Specific Acetabular Implant in 3-matic®
Using 3-matic, an implant was designed to match the anatomy of the patient’s hip. The software facilitated an accurate evaluation of the screw and 
implant positioning. The patient-specific flanges were designed, the location for the screws was determined and bone quality analyzed.
In addition, the team performed finite element analysis in Abaqus to verify whether the implant and bone assembly would withstand the forces and stresses. The final design of the “tri-flange cup” was verified by the surgeon and exported for 3D printing in titanium.
Almost immediately after surgery, the patient was pain-free and only a few months later, she was out of her wheelchair. Now she is going to school again and this time without crutches!
