Israeli surgeons replace half a teenager's pelvis with a 3D-printed implant

Surgeons from two hospitals in Israel's largest health organisation, Clalit, have replaced half of a 15-year-old boy's pelvis with a custom-designed, 3D-printed implant of titanium and an advanced polymer, Clalit announced in late August 2026. The patient had travelled from Russia after specialists there and elsewhere judged his tumour impossible to remove.

The boy had survived a childhood cancer as a toddler. At 14 he was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a rare and aggressive bone cancer, spread across several bones of the pelvis, with secondary tumours in his lungs. In osteosarcoma, removing the whole tumour surgically is crucial for survival. At Clalit-Schneider Children's Medical Center in Petah Tikva, targeted chemotherapy directed by paediatric oncologist Dr. Orli Michaeli cleared the lung metastases and shrank the main tumour, but the location still made surgery extremely difficult.

Specialists from Schneider and the neighbouring Clalit-Beilinson Hospital then spent hundreds of hours planning the operation digitally before a 19-hour procedure in which they cut away half of the pelvis and fitted an implant printed to match the patient's own anatomy. Dr. Arie Greenberg, an orthopaedic oncology and joint replacement specialist at Beilinson, said the aim was to restore movement as well as remove the cancer, and that the implant's polymer is designed to let new bone grow into it. The team was led by Dr. Israel Weiss, who heads orthopaedic oncology at both hospitals, with transplant surgeon Dr. Eviatar Nesher and orthopaedics chief Prof. Yona Kosashvili.

Clalit said the boy was recovering and in rehabilitation at Schneider, with his doctors monitoring his progress toward a full recovery. Patient-specific 3D-printed implants have been used for pelvic tumours in a handful of centres worldwide, but they remain rare, especially in children, because the pelvis carries the body's weight and connects the spine to the legs.