University of Illinois Veterinarians Use 3D Printing to Help With Eagle’s Surgery.

3D printing technology is helping veterinarians prep for surgical procedures on one of the most prized bird species in the world. Recently, students from the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine had come across a wild eagle with its left humerus out of alignment, due to improper healing after it was shattered by a gunshot wound months earlier. In order to help the bird take flight again, an intensive surgery was required. To do this, the veterinarian students turned to those in the College of Engineering, who assisted by creating two 3D printed life-sized models of the eagle’s humerus, one that was healthy and another that replicated the actual injured bone. Before the the 3D printed models were used by Dr. R. Avery Bennett, an acclaimed avian surgeon, to help perform the procedure, a massive dataset was procured from the spiral CT scan taken by veterinary radiologist Dr. Stephen Joslyn. Consulting from Australia, Dr. Joslyn added a so-called ‘threshold’ into the data, which enabled the computer to separate ‘bone’ and ‘not-bone’ from the subtle and delicate CT scan information. Since the injured bone was fragmented, and thus unable to be printed in a single piece, medical illustrator Janet Sinn-Hanlon utilized software to manually thicken and link the bone areas together. After communications went back-and-forth between experts across the world, which were facilitated by Wildlife Medical Clinic intern and University of Illinois student Dr. Nichole Rosenhagen, it seemed that the life-sized models were set to be 3D printed in the university’s Rapid Prototyping Lab. But, the day before the surgery was planned, it turned out that the 3D printing queue was full. Thanks to Ralf Möller, the lab supervisor and director of technical services in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, the models were 3D printed overnight in about six hours, and were good to go by the time the lab opened up the next morning. Möller enlisted the help of undergraduate student and lab technician Nick Ragano, who visited the lab overnight to ensure that 3D models would be prepared for use, and also pressure washed the starch-based support material used to print the plastic models. That morning, the 3D printed bones were collected by Dr. Rosenhagen, and the injured eagle received successful orthopedic surgery in a matter of three hours culled from 3dprint.com

ANIMAL PROTECTION RIGHTS AND CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION.

A At the start of 2016, the FBI announced that it would start tracking animal cruelty in the same way it tracks felonies, such as arson, burglary, assault, and homicide. Oftentimes, the agency said, crimes against animals are indicators of further criminal activity. But how does one know if a pet’s injuries are naturally occurring or caused intentionally by a human? Tufts University and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals are attempting to define the differences between the two. In a study slated for publication in the Journal of Forensic Sciences, the researchers performed a comparative analysis between animal injuries caused by motor vehicle accidents (MVA) and those from non-accidental injuries (NAI). “Clinicians still face many difficulties in identifying animal abuse,” the researchers wrote in their study. “Animals are unable to speak for themselves, and some animals’ innate personality and trust will even belie the cruelty they have suffered. Additionally, the actual cause of the injury often differs from the description provided by the client.” In the study, 426 dogs and cats with MVA injuries were compared against 50 dogs and cats with NAI. The 426 cases were provided by the Foster Hospital for Small Animals, which operates at the university’s Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. The 50 other cases, deemed criminal cases of abuse, were provided by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals’ Humane Law Enforcement Division. “Injuries significantly associated with MVA were pelvic fractures, pneumothorax, pulmonary contusion, abrasions, and degloving wounds,” according to the researchers. “Injuries associated with NAI were fractures of the skull, teeth, vertebrae, and ribs, scleral hemorrhage, damage to claws, and evidence of older fractures.” Additionally, abused animals tended to have rib fractures on both sides of the body, whereas rib fractures from MVAs usually appeared on one side of the body. Establishing these patterns, according to the researchers, will help clinicians differentiate between causes of trauma. “This study contributes to the expanding body of research in the growing field of veterinary forensic medicine and will help forensic veterinarians continue to give a voice to the voiceless,” said Robert Reisman, of the American Society for the Prevention of the Cruelty to Animals. culled from R&D magazine.