Custom 3D printed skin protection solves rare medical issue

When Laser Lines’ customer Bluefrog Design was asked to help a patient’s long-term skin condition, it succeeded by 3D printing a shield to protect his torso from irritation of clothes.

Jane Gibbons, Laser Lines’ Product Specialist, said: “The patient suffers from paraesthesia which produces a prickling feeling on his chest, especially when clothes rub against it. Bluefrog Design built a part that prevented his clothes from touching his body.”

Chris Samwell, Bluefrog Design’s director, said: “We 3D-scanned the patient’s body, and identified the parts from which we could hang a support to keep his clothes away from his skin.”

By scanning rather than measuring, the Bluefrog team avoided touching the patient’s body, which would have risked further irritation, capturing precise measurements to use as a base when designing the part using Solidworks 3D CAD.

“The result followed the contours of the patient’s body, which we couldn’t have done using any other method – we’d have ended up with a very generalised part, not much different to putting a dustbin lid on his chest.”

The part was printed using medical-grade ABS Plus, and hung from the patient where he suffered the least irritation.

Gibbons describes the result as a lightweight cage, like rib protectors for go-karting. Its weight saving was largely thanks to the production process itself.

Samwell added: “The design is lattice-based so it’s light, and we’re saving up to 60 per cent of the material that traditional production methods would consume. That also gives ventilation to keep the patient cool. You have an air gap, so air can flow through it between the clothes and the body.”