Vinmec hospital in Hanoi saves 23-year-old patient's leg with custom 3D-printed titanium talus implant

Vinmec Times City International Hospital in Hanoi, working with the 3D Medical Technology Center at VinUni, replaced a 23-year-old patient's talus bone with a custom 3D-printed titanium implant after a chondroblastoma tumor had destroyed up to 80% of the bone's volume. The implant was modeled from the patient's diagnostic imaging and took months of design and testing to match his anatomy before Professor Tran Trung Dung led the two-hour surgery, fully removing the tumor and preserving ankle joint mobility. Vinmec says this is only the third full talus replacement of its kind performed in Vietnam, all by the same surgical team. The patient began physical therapy within 24 hours and was walking normally and pain-free within two months.

The talus bears up to 300-400 percent of body weight during running and jumping and sits deep in a narrow anatomical space, making full prosthetic replacement one of the more demanding reconstructions in orthopedic trauma, previously limited in Vietnam to ankle fusion or amputation once the bone was this compromised. The case extends a pattern already visible at Vinmec, which has used patient-specific titanium implants for pediatric chest-wall reconstruction and femur replacement in bone cancer patients, pointing to a hospital-embedded 3D printing capability rather than a one-off demonstration. It also illustrates a different adoption path for AM in medical devices: the buyer is the hospital's own design center rather than an external implant maker, an approach that can shorten the path to custom implants in markets without easy access to Western orthopedic device suppliers.