World First! Artificial Mandible Installed on Sunbird in Leshan, Sichuan
Recently, at the Sichuan Mochen Sunbird Breeding Center, a male sunbird was injured during a fierce mating struggle, resulting in 8 cm of the tip of its lower mandible being necrotic. After a meticulous preparation of over a month, on March 19th, the world’s first artificial sunbird mandible installation surgery was completed at Mochen County People’s Hospital.
After losing its lower mandible, this sunbird was unable to feed itself, groom its feathers, and had lost its former graceful appearance. Installing an artificial mandible was the best solution for this problem. The breeding center staff, after researching, discovered that a Siberian crane at Nanjing Hongshan Forest Park had also been injured due to fighting, and the customized a ‘titanium alloy’ artificial mandible for it, but because sunbirds are smaller than Siberian cranes, they could not withstand the weight of titanium alloy.
“We found that PEEK material, used for human bone implants, is more suitable,” said Wu Yongzhong, a staff member at the Sichuan Mochen Sunbird Breeding Center. “The same volume of PEEK material weighs only one-quarter of that of titanium alloy, and it has a texture closer to a bird’s beak, with good stress and water hydrolysis resistance, and it is non-toxic and corrosion-resistant and heat-resistant.”
Soon, with the assistance of the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Natural Resources Science, the Sichuan Mochen Sunbird Breeding Center contacted Dongguan OneMeter Smart Technology Co., Ltd. After 6 mold installation tests, on March 18th, the 3D-printed peek artificial mandible finally arrived at Mochen. On March 19th, Mochen County People’s Hospital Orthopedic Vice Director Wan Fenglin, with the assistance of several medical personnel, performed the artificial mandible installation surgery on the sunbird.
Through infiltration anesthesia, wound cleaning, tissue adhesion, drilling and threading, and grinding adjustment, the 50-minute surgery ended. The sunbird slowly recovered and now has a new ‘lower mandible’.
“This is the hospital’s first treatment of a national level protected animal. The difficulty of installing the artificial mandible on the sunbird’s lower mandible lies in the thin layer of fleshy membrane with many capillaries in the middle, so it needs to be handled very carefully!” said Wan Fenglin. The sunbird’s ‘lower mandible’ installation is similar to human joint replacement, mainly fixing the surgery and restoring function. The installed artificial mandible weighs about 6 grams, which is comparable to the weight of the original beak, and the surgery was very successful. A period of observation and recovery will still be needed.
Source: Unlimitless Leshan
