Health & Medicine
3-D Printing Helps 'Reshape' The Face Of 2-Year-Old Girl With Rare Condition (Video)
Kathleen Lees
First Posted: Apr 08, 2015 05:20 PM EDT
Two-year-old Violet Pietrok has just spent the past few months enjoying herself with her twin sister and older siblings. Now, she can finally smile and take part in other activities normally.
The young girl was born with a rare condition called frontonasal dysplasia, which results from abnormal development of the head and face even before birth.
It was in October at Boston Children's Hospital with both a plastic surgeon and neurosurgeon that she underwent extensive surgery to reshape her face. The six hour surgery was not without complications, according to doctors. Fortunately, they found the solutions they needed with the help of a 3D-printer.
"This allows us to understand what needed to be modified or addressed on the model before making an incision or bone cuts in the (operating room)," said Dr. John Meara, plastic surgeon-in-chief at Boston Children's Hospital, in a video. "For Violet, I actually modified my osteotomies (bone cuts) based on something that I was able to see happening in the model."
Six months after the surgery, she's recovering quite well. And her family is hopeful that Pietrok's story might help bring more awareness to the condition.
"She's fantastic. She's taking it all in stride," Violet's mother, Alicia Taylor, told ABC News. "She's so happy ... all the time. If she's not smiling, she's generally asleep or throwing a fit."
Want to learn more about Pietrok's journey? Check out this video, courtesy of Boston Children's Hospital.
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First Posted: Apr 08, 2015 05:20 PM EDT
Two-year-old Violet Pietrok has just spent the past few months enjoying herself with her twin sister and older siblings. Now, she can finally smile and take part in other activities normally.
The young girl was born with a rare condition called frontonasal dysplasia, which results from abnormal development of the head and face even before birth.
It was in October at Boston Children's Hospital with both a plastic surgeon and neurosurgeon that she underwent extensive surgery to reshape her face. The six hour surgery was not without complications, according to doctors. Fortunately, they found the solutions they needed with the help of a 3D-printer.
"This allows us to understand what needed to be modified or addressed on the model before making an incision or bone cuts in the (operating room)," said Dr. John Meara, plastic surgeon-in-chief at Boston Children's Hospital, in a video. "For Violet, I actually modified my osteotomies (bone cuts) based on something that I was able to see happening in the model."
Six months after the surgery, she's recovering quite well. And her family is hopeful that Pietrok's story might help bring more awareness to the condition.
"She's fantastic. She's taking it all in stride," Violet's mother, Alicia Taylor, told ABC News. "She's so happy ... all the time. If she's not smiling, she's generally asleep or throwing a fit."
Want to learn more about Pietrok's journey? Check out this video, courtesy of Boston Children's Hospital.
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone