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Dr Martina Barzan and her team at have created computerised 鈥榯wins鈥� of child patients that would enable surgeons to better plan, test and execute complex surgeries for severe hip deformities.

The development is said to halve surgery time, which means getting back to normal walking and sitting sooner.

Dr David Bade from the l has trialled the technique and agrees that using the 3D-printed guides reduces his surgical time.

鈥淭his is particularly so with very difficult deformity cases,鈥� he said. 鈥淲ith less surgical time, there are less X-rays and radiation doses, and less blood loss for these young patients.鈥�

Dr Barzan explained that before the digital twins were created, 鈥渟urgeons would have to cut out X-rays and move the pieces back and forth鈥�.

Now, surgeons can use computerised replicas of the children鈥檚 bones, muscles and the way they move to understand how their hips will move after the surgery, to make the best virtual plan.

Dr Barzan designed a system to translate those virtual plans to the operating theatre, using 3D-printed surgical guides individually matched to each patient鈥檚 body. The system leads to decreased radiation and every patient recovers back to normal walking.

鈥淣ine months later, all of the children could walk normally, sit and play pain-free,鈥� Dr Barzan said.

Dr David Bade said that the innovation 鈥渉elps me, as a surgeon, get the best result on the table, and also helps the patient get a more accurate result and better outcome long term鈥�.

鈥淭his type of pre-planning and patient-specific cutting guides can be used in multiple areas of the body and in multiple deformities.鈥�

The only treatment for children with severe hip deformities is surgery. Such deformities can occur through trauma, infection or being born with them.

Dr Barzan won this year鈥檚 Judge鈥檚 Choice Award (Southeast Queensland) for her work. The competition is national, and helps early-career researchers find and share their stories of discovery.

The program takes up-and-coming researchers with no media experience and turns them into spokespeople for science, giving them a taste of life in the limelight, with a day of media training and pitching experience, and a public event in their home state.

Dr Barzan was supervised by Associate Professor Christopher Carty, a Principal Research Fellow at the Griffith School of SHS聽鈥� 黑料吃瓜群网 Science.

Image credit: Michael Adams, Griffith University