The plaster cast of the future? 3D-printed design uses ultrasound to speed up healing

A Turkish design student has unveiled his revolutionary cast for patients



The 3D-printed cast enables injuries to be treated faster and more easily



Ventilation holes on the Osteoid Medical Cast prevent itches and smells



An ultrasound system can also be be attached to the ventilation holes



When attached to the cast this system further speeds the healing process



Plaster casts have changed relatively little in the 300 years they have existed, but the treatment has just been given a 21st century makeover.

A new 3D-printed cast has recently won an award for its innovative design because, quite apart from its slick look, it uses ultrasound to speed up healing too.

The Osteoid Medical Cast is the product of four months of research by a Turkish design student.

Droid medicine: The award-winning Osteoid medical cast pulses low frequency ultrasound directly on the arm

‘Conventional medical casts sacrifice ventilation for structural integrity,’ Deniz Karasahin says in his paper proposing the design.



‘As a result they are itchy, they smell very bad and due to plaster’s material properties they are bulky, heavy and they limit patient’s exposure to water.’



Turkish student Deniz Karasahin (pictured) won the 2014 Golden A'Design Award for his concept

The Osteoid medical cast, he claims, tackles the problem by 3D-printing the cast to fit the shape of the patient’s arm, and also providing ventilation holes.

To perfectly fit the cast to a patient’s arm, the injured area is scanned with a 3D body scanner.

This data is then transferred to modelling software, which determines the overall size and geometry of the finished cast.

Once printed, a locking mechanism and algorithmically generated ventilation holes area added.

According to Karasahin, from Izmir, Turkey, a low intensity pulsed ultrasound (Lipus) bone stimulator is then placed directly on a patient's skin when the design has been printed.



The medical cast is combined with the Lipus stimulator system to speed up the healing process.

The company says that spending just 20 minutes a day hooked to the system, which plugs directly into the cast, reduces healing time by up to 38 per cent and increases the healing rate up to 80 per cent over traditional casts.

Later on additional locking mechanisms and algorithmically generated ventilation holes are added to the final data along with Lipus probe adapters

Its maker claims that spending just 20 minutes a day hooked up to the mains could increase the healing rate for fractures and breaks by up to 80 per cent

The ventilation holes also enable the Lipus bone stimulator probes to be placed directly over the injured area.

There is a thin layer of rubber fixed to the edges of the Lipus adapters, which helps these pieces to fit on the ventilation holes of the medical cast.

‘The most difficult part was to come up with a fully functioning locking mechanism which is strong enough to protect the limb,’ Karasahin concludes.

It also had to be ‘practical enough to put it on the fragile injured area and simple enough so that it doesn’t disturb the general form of the medical cast.’

The product is still in its design phase so the date it will be on the market is not known but, when it does, it could revolutionise cast technology.

