3D printer makes man's heel (SBS)
Doctors have used a 3D printer to help save a Melbourne man from losing his leg to cancer.
Builder Len Chandler feared that he was going to lose his foot.
Bone cancer had eaten a hole in his heel and had made it difficult for him to walk.
But in July, the 71-year-old travelled from Rutherglen in Victoria to Melbourne to undergo a pioneering procedure using a titanium heel made in a 3D printer.
"I never knew the operation would be this successful or this important," says Chandler.
"I thought it might be the first time this had been done in Victoria.
"I didn't realise it would be the first time in the world."
Chandler's foot had been bothering him for years, but it wasn't until April that he learned he had cancer in the calcaneus.
People with this type of cancer often lose the leg below the knee because it is difficult to replace the heel bone.
"It's been annoying me for about six or seven years," says Chandler.
"I've been to physiotherapists, podiatrists and acupuncturists.
"I tried everything - and then I half gave up."
Finally, after an x-ray at a local hospital he was referred to St Vincent's Hospital surgeon Professor Peter Choong, who was devel...
