By Heidi Milkert
Every day it seems like another incredible medical application for 3D printing emerges. Whether it’s affordable customizable prosthetic devices, the actual printing of biological material, or the numerous surgeries that are made safer and are performed quicker and more precisely thanks to 3D printed medical models, lives are constantly being improved and even saved on a regular basis now.
Along with the United States, China is leading the way, particularly within the 3D printed medical model space. We’ve see a number of complicated, delicate surgeries performed with greater knowledge and confidence thanks to 3D printed models that replicate the human anatomy. 
One such surgery recently took place at the Orthopaedic Hospital of Zhengzhou City in China, where a 28-year-old woman named Yan had suddenly begun suffering from numbness and difficulty standing, walking, and grasping items. Up until that point Yan had been a normal, healthy young adult, but when she went in for an exam, doctors found that her third cervical vertebra had a serious congenital malformation. This caused Yan to suffer from a condition known as atlantoaxial dislocation, causing the nerves near the rear of her spinal cord to compress. This compression led to the lack of feeling and movement that Yan had been experiencing.