During the operation to remove the cancer, British doctors reconstructed the chest with a 3D printer.

71-year-old Peter Maggzu removed three ribs and half of the sternum, placing instead a prosthesis, writes the Air Force.

As noted, the cancerous tumor has grown as large as a tennis ball and its removal has caused extensive damage to the chest. The operation lasted eight hours. She was held at the Morrison Hospital in Swansea, the second largest city in Wales.

Usually in such cases, surgeons cast a prosthesis from a special medical cement.

But thanks to the technology of 3D printing doctors could produce for the patient an individual implant of titanium alloy.

It is believed that this is one of the first cases of printing such prostheses in Britain.