3D Printing And A Bright Future Of Medicine -By Saifullahi Attahir Wurno

Hannatu* was an elderly woman aged 65 who suffers  from a rare form of  Breast Cancer that paralyzed her life and negatively affects that  of her grown up children by restricting their movement  from  attending workplace  for  been in her constant  company seeking  medical attention. From her medical history the disease begins as a form of innocent lump in the outer  upper quadrant of her left mammary gland which  doesn’t usually  get the desired  attention not only from her but generally from the public for the lack of public awareness about breast cancer which is another subject of discussion on  its own. Her explanation as to the negligence was that looking as how grown she was and the long period she gave up breast feeding was a natural reason for the lump appearance which she hopes may disappears by its self, indeed  Hannatu  makes a terrible mistake of not alerting even her closest and only female child who despite been  married but  frequently visited her.

During my first year in college  while  on a  visit to  Rasheed Shekoni Teaching Hospital Dutse,  I happened to know about the grieved   Hannatu family who were struggling with doctor’s visit almost thrice a month  with no visible improvement. Her condition was deteriorating and the cancer had already metastasized in to her lungs causing significant respiratory distress.

Looking at the rapid deteriorative condition the patient was in the Doctors decided to referred her  to ABU Zaria Teaching Hospital to meet another  superior Oncologist.  While in Zaria Hajara received all sort of  drug therapy  and interventions for her conditions but to no avail, the  Shika Consultant explained the reason  as  that all breast cancer chemotherapy developed and approved as  of  that moment  couldn’t matched  with her body  cells and organs  making it difficult to have positive response. Finally the physician offer some palliative therapy and advised Hannatu to wait for few more months  for the development  of a drug that may match  with her cells, unfortunately She  died 3 months later.

3D printing is an emerging technology developed originally  by Charles Hulls 1980’s  which has wide variety of applications  in several technological  aspects  of life,   but it  soon received attention especially  from the  Tech-Med industries   that revolutionized the  development of pills (drugs)  with complex structures by  simply adding  active pharmaceutical ingredients (API)  layer by layer through computer aided design (CAD) and fused deposition modeling (FDM)  which allow a drugs  to be design according to the nature of cellular and extracellular matrix of each individuals, this makes it possible to design therapy according to the specific need of a patient unlike  the conventional way of mass drug production  that end up not  matching many patients with similar symptoms but differ in a slight anatomical or genetic makeup.

3D printing has the ability of precise micro-controlling, and can obtain different release profiles by controlling the external shape and internal structure of tablets. In addition, high precision of 3D bio-printing technology enables it to build ‘organs’ or organ-on-a-chip that mimic the normal physiological functions of the human body. These ‘organs’  or organ-on-a-chip can be utilized in  drug testing, this can effectively reduced the threat poses by introduction of whole tested drugs in to a full human individual during clinical trials stages  which in many cases produce more harm than good to the client  apart from other   ethical issues even though informed consent are obtained.

Example of a 3D printing drug is Spritam developed to cure epilepsy which was already approved by FDA (Food and Drug Administration), a US Agency responsible for approving new manufactured drugs and the largest global regulatory body with such responsibility. More promising development in 3D pills was under way to cure diseases like Diabetes, Cancer, and  many Neurological conditions.

Finally, it’s therefore essential for student, researchers, institutions, and Governments  to delve in to this potential  area in order to help the world in alleviating highly distressing pathological conditions that continued to eat away thousands of lives and  billions of Dollars annually in wastage of drugs that are not  specific for individual’s body requirement.

Saifullahi  Attahir, a 300L  Medical student, Fed. University Dutse.

Email :  saifullahiattahir93@gmail.com

Phone : 08066084484

Reference:

1- 3Dnatives.com

2-  xiao zhu et al, science direct.com/

3- medicalfuturist.com/

4- startus- insights. com/