Leaders in Pharmaceutical Business Intelligence (LPBI) Group

How 3D Printing Can Save a Life

Curator: Danut Dragoi, PhD

The story of Mike Balzer and his wife Pamela Scott of California is a true story of brain tumor (Menigioma tumor) survival http://3dprintingindustry.com/2014/10/25/3d-printing-helps-husband-seek-treatment-for-wifes-brain-tumor/ that leaves big wounds in many people’s lives today. Living in California I heard many stories with brain tumors topics that have a no happy end outcome. This story is a successful one. It is succesfull because it has an additional element that added to the actual health care system made the story successful. That element is the capacity of people to quickly mobilize in order to solve human existential problems, like surviving a threatening and ultimate devastating human disease like brain tumor. Last October, Michael Balzer who is a 3D scanning and 3D printing enthusiast, had used his favorite technologies to help diagnose his wife’s tumor and seek out treatment. While Mike was preparing the 3D model, his wife was working on the research for finding the right surgeon. When the 3D model was ready, Pam found Dr. Gartner in Pitsburg who agreed to operate Pamela’s tumor. Everything worked smoothly and all operation went well so Pam today is very happy with the outcome. The story has its uniqueness in that both Mike and Pam are not doctors, secondly they solved an important health problem for human kind. People around them helped them very efficiently so in a very short period of time a solved problem in health science can be reported and many people can benefit of it. Curator for LPBI Dr. Danut Dragoi.