Doctors in Melbourne have successfully carried out a world-first procedure by creating a new heel bone, using 3D technology.
The breakthrough has allowed the patient to keep his foot instead of having it amputated after being diagnosed with cancer.
Doctors warned the 71-year-old that he risked losing his foot to prevent the cancer from spreading.
"They'd done biopsies and the doctor said it's a serious thing and he said you'd have your foot (taken) off. But he said we'll give a go, which was the other alternative really. So I said yeah, we're prepared to try it."
That alternative was pioneered by Professor Peter Choong from Saint Vincent's Hospital in Melbourne.
Instead of having to amputate his foot, as with most cases of this type of cancer, Professor Choong attempted something had yet to be tried in orthopedic surgery.
"The good thing about this tumour I suppose, as it were, is that it was purely within the bone. That meant we could do things to the bone that we otherwise couldn't. Traditionally you would manage this by amputation below the knee. The reason being that it's come out of the knee. The reason being, it's come out of the bone, it's into the soft tissue and it makes any form of reconstruction very, very difficult. Recognising that we could actually cut the bone out, meant we could preserve the nerves, tendons and the arteries and rebuild him with a prothesis. So that trick was how do you actually get a prothesis to match precisely the bone you are removing."
This groundbreaking procedure also involved teams from biotech company Anatomics which designed the bone and the CSIRO which printed it.
Scientists were able to create an exact replica of Len's right heel bone, mirrored using a CT scan of his left heel bone which had the exact dimensions.
The bone was made out of titanium using a 3D printer.
This was then inserted via surgery to replace the cancerous bone, allowing him to keep his foot, which would otherwise have been amputated.
Andrew Batty is the Chief Executive of Anatomics.
"We designed an impant that was taken from the otherside of the heel. The part that was designed in 3D software and that software was then used to export the data file and and sent to the CSIRO and they manufactured the Titanium heel to our design."
Professor Choong hopes that this breakthrough will signal a reduction in the number of amputations for similar procedures.
"This is a great way of demonstrating that we can actually be bold enough to start creating parts, for example, the pelvis, the thigh bone, parts of the shoulder - failry complex structures that in the past were difficult to manufacture and now we've done so. But at the same time in a way that fits the patient, there by making both the surgery more accurate, the reconstruction more accurate and allowing the reconstruction of the soft tissues and muscles around it to occur much more effectively "
And as for Len Chandler, he's just happy to be back on his feet again.
"I've got no irritation or pain, or anything from that, it just fits perfect. i couldn't ask for anything better."
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