Medical 3D Printer

Three-dimensional (3D) printing refers to a number of manufacturing technologies that generate a physical model from digital information. Medical 3D printing was once an ambitious pipe dream.

However, time and investment made it real. Nowadays, 3D printing technology represents a big opportunity to help pharmaceutical and medical companies to create more specific drugs, enabling rapid production of medical implants and changing the way that doctors and surgeons plan procedures.

We compiled this buying guide to help you understand how medical 3D printers are influencing the lives of doctors and patients alike in the medical industry. From this buying guide, you can also obtain detailed insight on the impact and changes 3D printers bring to the industry and the factors to be considered when buying a 3D printer.

1.1, 3D Printer for Dental

To begin, let’s take a look at the impact medical 3D printers are having in the dental industry. 3D printing is a rapidly growing technology in numerous fields, especially in dental laboratories, all due to the new software, 3D scanners, additive technologies, and post-processing methods that increased efficiency and cost savings, to faster production speeds and improved quality to benefit not only doctors but also patients, to make their experience pleasing through the drop of the price, and save time, which is one of the little advantages that this technology brought with it to this industry.

When it comes to manufacturing dentures, medical 3D printers bring with them a whole host of points of interest. One of the greatest advantages is the improved qualities. Before, With traditional manual workflows, the quality of the finished products is highly dependent on the skills of a given technician.

Achieving consistent and high-quality dental products with so many potential sources of error are incredibly difficult and expensive.

However, now with medical 3D printers, even delicate structures can easily be created as the component is built up layer-by-layer, and the process is controlled by a software program. Compared to a plaster model, a 3D-model is a more stable, durable, and precise alternative. The lines and edges on a bio 3D printed model stay sharp without the dental technician having to worry about wearing them down. Compared to a milled model, a 3D-printed model has a more complex structure with a higher level of detail.

With digital dentistry, the room for error is reduced, and the automation reduces labor, resulting in time and cost savings for labs and practices all around the world, while Manual model-making is time-consuming. Medical 3D printers allow for multiple appliances to be printed at once since the digital copy is received in minutes because it is sent electronically.

The technician can start working as soon as the copy of the scanning arrives. Also, medical printing provides a clean workplace for the technician without having to deal with plaster or inhale grinding dust.

1.2, 3D Printer for Human Organs Model

3D printing of human organ models is a rampant trend in the medical industry. Ranging from human heart 3D prints to 3D printed lungs, medical 3D printers leave room for a smooth and more refined medical process. Using a medical 3D printer, doctors and surgeons enjoy a more refined medical process.

However, before we go into detail regarding the human parts, 3D printers leave room to print; it’s important to note that medical 3D printers can only create 3D objects suitable for research and leering. Parts designed using medical 3D printing cannot in any way serve as tangible human parts for transplant. All the information detailed out regarding 3D printing for medical use is mainly focused on research and learning processes.

• 3D Printed Lungs

Creating functional tissue replacements is a high scientific priority because of its potential impact on organ donations. The crisis of organ shortages is a long-lasting one; around 114,000 people are on transplant waiting lists in the United States alone. Even after a successful transplant, patients have to take immune-suppressing drugs to prevent organ rejection for the foreseeable future. 3D Bioprinting organs could play an important role in reducing both problems.

In 3D printing lungs, researchers used specially-designed medical 3D printers to develop an artificial air sac that structurally and functionally mimics similar structures found in the human lung, including the ability to pulsate or “breathe” without bursting. The development represents a step toward the much-anticipated era of 3D-printed human tissues, which holds promise for addressing the critical need for organ transplants.

One of the biggest roadblocks to developing tissue replacements has been an inability to print the complex vascular networks, like airways and blood vessels of the lung or bile ducts and blood vessels in the liver, the researchers said. But the scientists announced they had found a way to overcome this difficult hurdle.

Note that while this medical breakthrough opens up opportunities for individuals in numerous sectors, 3D printed human lungs and tissues are only suitable for research and learning processes. 3D printed parts cannot be used as a replacement for real organs during surgical operations.

• 3D Printed Human Tissue

Progress in drug testing and regenerative medicine could greatly benefit from laboratory-engineered human tissues built of a variety of cell types with precise medical 3D printers. But the production of greater than millimeter-sized human tissues has been limited by a lack of methods for building tissues with embedded life-sustaining vascular networks.

Multidisciplinary research at the Wyss Institute has led to the development of a multi-material 3D bioprinting method that generates vascularized tissues composed of living human cells that are nearly ten-fold thicker than previously engineered tissues, and that can sustain their architecture and function for upwards of six weeks.

The method uses a customizable, printed silicone mold to house and plumbs the printed tissue on a chip. Inside this mold, a grid of larger vascular channels containing living endothelial cells in silicone ink is printed, into which a self-supporting ink containing living mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) is layered in a separate print job.

After printing, a liquid composed of fibroblasts and an extracellular matrix is used to fill open regions within the construct, adding a connective tissue component that cross-links and further stabilizes the entire structure.

• 3D Printed Human Heart

The FRESH technique of 3D bioprinting was invented in Feinberg’s lab to fill an unfilled demand for 3D printed soft polymers, which lack the rigidity to stand unsupported as in a normal print. FRESH 3D prints human organs using a needle to inject bio-ink into a bath of soft hydrogel, which supports the object as it prints. Once finished, a simple application of heat causes the hydrogel to melt away, leaving only the 3D bio-printed object.

While Feinberg, a professor of biomedical engineering and materials science and engineering, has proven both the versatility and the fidelity of the FRESH technique, the major obstacle to achieving this milestone was printing a human heart at full scale. This necessitated the building of a new medical 3D printer custom made to hold a gel support bath large enough to print at the desired size, as well as minor software changes to maintain the speed and fidelity of the print.

Major hospitals often have medical devices for 3D printing models of a patient’s body to help surgeons educate patients and plan for the actual procedure; however, these tissues and organs can only be modeled in hard plastic or rubber.

• 3D Printed Hip Replacement

Medical 3D printers are also used for knee realignment. Indeed, in some cases, the cartilage damages are causing pain and make the patient unable to do sports or any physical activity. Then, a surgical operation is required.

Thanks to medical-grade 3D printers, there is actually an operation developed to prevent patients from total knee replacement: knee realignment using additive manufacturing technology. From the CT scans of the patients, doctors can create surgical guides or even joints, totally custom-made using medical 3D printers and perfectly fitting the morphology of the patient.

This way, surgeons can make operations such as osteotomy in order to reduce the discomfort of the patients, using custom-made devices.

3D printed knee implants Companies such as Conformis are also developing the use of additive manufacturing to create implants, using a CT scan of each patient. Conformis knee implants are made possible with medical field 3D printers and are totally making the most of the custom-made aspect. This way, the knee implant entirely respects the morphology and the needs of the patient.

This technology can be used for many different knee problems such as bone spurs, cysts, or flattening of the joint. How does it work? They are using additive manufacturing in order to create custom wax molds, allowing them to make these implants using femoral and tibial components.

• 3D Printed Liver

Researchers say it took 90 days to develop these small, bio-printed livers from patient blood collection to tissue production. The first step is to reprogram the patient’s blood cells into induced pluripotent stem cells. These are then differentiated into liver cells, and their spheroids can then be integrated into the bio-ink. The printing process can now begin. The cultivation of the 3D printed cell structures took 18 days.

To test this method, the scientists explain that they bio-printed three different small livers from the cells of three volunteer patients. They studied the functionalities of the liver as well as the maintenance of cell contact. The spheroids functioned much better than those obtained from single-cell dispersion. As expected, during maturation, the markers of liver function were not reduced. The researchers say this experiment could be done on a larger scale and on other organs. Good news for the medical sector!

• 3D Printed Bladder

The Bladder Assisted Composite Manufacturing (BACM) technique allows the fabrication of complex hollow composite geometries. However, traditional bladder manufacturing methods require multiple steps and a master geometry, which increases the cost and manufacturing time.

Hence, medical 3D printed bladders are presented as an alternative solution to bladders manufactured through traditional methods. The use of 3D printed bladders is demonstrated by consolidating and curing a composite part made out of an aerospace-grade composite prepreg material.

Bladders are additively manufactured using the Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) technique with Thermoplastic Polyurethane (TPU). Based on the results of a thermomechanical investigation of the TPU, a two-step curing cycle for manufacturing a composite part with IM7/8552 prepreg was designed.

The part consolidation achieved with this method was characterized by measuring void content and comparing it to the void content in a sample cured in a standard autoclave process. The low void content achieved with the BACM method demonstrated the potential of 3D printers in medicine to provide bladders for short production runs or prototyping.

• 3D Printed Human Skull

People have always been fascinated with mortality, from superstitiously fearing the grim unknown to philosophically pondering the meaning of life. From a historical perspective, the skull has always been at the heart of the matter, representing both physical reality and ominous symbolism.

The Anatomical Museum at the University of Edinburgh has started making a variety of highly-detailed printable 3D skulls of a variety of artifacts from their museum, including the skull of a Homo neanderthalensis that lived in Eurasia 400,000 to 40,000 years ago. This is a great option if you want to get your hands on “real” artifacts right in your own home or classroom.

3D printed human skulls have built a reputation for themselves in the DIY and Hollywood industry. A lot of everyday home equipment such as pots and flower vases are designed in the shape of a human skull. 3D printed skulls are also widely used for research and learning purposes in medicine.

• 3D Printed Kidney Transplant

An adult kidney has been transplanted into a child with the help of medical 3D printers, says a report from Guy’s and St Thomas’ in London, UK. According to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), kidney disease affects around 3.9 million Americans – or 1.7% of the population.

The National Kidney Foundation explains that chronic kidney disease (CKD) includes a number of conditions, and it also has various causes, the most common being diabetes, and high blood pressure. If the kidneys fail, a transplant or regular dialysis is needed to keep the patient alive.

A medical 3D printer was used to create models of Chris’s kidney and Lucy’s abdomen. These enabled surgeons to plan the highly complex operation accurately in order to minimize the risks. The medical-grade 3D printing machine used measurements gathered through CT and MRI scans to produce a liquid plastic model, which was molded under ultraviolet light to reproduce the exact size and density of the body parts.

The 3D medical printer enabled surgeons to check whether the transplant would be feasible and to practice the operation beforehand. The transplant, which took 4 hours to complete, was successful.

• 3D Printed Plastic Surgery

Plastic surgery can help improve quality of life, especially when patients are dealing with craniofacial issues – soft tissues of the face, like the nose and lips, and bones of the craniomaxillofacial (CMF) skeleton.

This field helps improve those things that make us human, such as how we talk, look, and use our hands. Medical 3D printers are often used in conjunction with plastic surgery, and, as a pair of researchers in Missouri explain, it’s an excellent specialty in which to better define how the technology is used in surgery.

Alexander Y. Lin, MD and Lauren M. Yarholar, MD, with the Saint Louis University School of Medicine and SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital, published a paper, “Plastic Surgery Innovation with 3D Printing for Craniomaxillofacial Operations,” about the four types of 3D printed objects for surgical use, emphasizing plastic surgery and CMF operations, and the technology’s “high clinical relevance to all potential procedures utilizing 3DP assistance.”

“Plastic Surgery restores unique human qualities such as appearance, speech (palate), hands, to improve interaction with others and quality of life,” the two wrote. “3D printing in the medical industry can be applied to Plastic Surgery craniomaxillofacial operations to change the bony skeleton of the skull, face, and jaws.”

1.3, 3D Printer for Medical Device

Medical 3D printers are used to manufacture a variety of medical devices, including those with complex geometry or features that match a patient’s unique anatomy.

Some 3D printers for medical purposes are printed from a standard design to make multiple identical copies of the same device. Other devices, called patient-matched or patient-specific devices, are created from a specific patient’s imaging data. Commercially available 3D printed medical devices include:

• Instrumentation (e.g., guides to assist with the proper surgical placement of a device),
• Implants (e.g., cranial plates or hip joints), and
• External prostheses (e.g., hands).

Scientists are researching how to use medical 3D printers to manufacture living organs such as a heart or liver, but this research is in the early stages of development.

The 3D printing process can be accomplished using any of several different technologies. The choice of technology can depend on many factors, including how the final product will be used and how easy the printer is to use.

The most common technology used for 3D printing medical devices is called powder bed fusion. Powder bed fusion is commonly used because it works with a variety of materials used in medical devices, such as titanium and nylon.

The powder bed fusion process builds a three-dimensional product from very fine metal or plastic powder, which is poured onto a platform and leveled carefully. A laser or electron beam then moves across the powder layer and melts the material it touches.

Melted material fuses to the layer below it and to the powder around it to create a solid. Once a layer is completed, the platform moves down, and one more layer of carefully leveled powder is placed on top.

1.4, 3D Printer for Surgery Guide

The use of medical 3D printers is gaining considerable success in many medical fields including surgery. Here, the technology was introduced for increasing the level of anatomical understanding thanks to the inherent characteristics of 3D printed models: these are highly accurate and customized reproductions, being obtained from own radiological imaging of patients, and are solid graspable objects allowing for free manipulation on the part of the user.

The resulting tactile feedbacks significantly help the comprehension of anatomical details, especially the spatial relations between structures. In this regard, they proved to be more effective than conventional 2D imaging and 3D virtual models.

To date, an increasing number of applications have been successfully tested in many surgical disciplines, extending the range of possible uses to pre-operative planning, counseling with patients, education of students and residents, surgical training, intraoperative navigation, and others.

In recent years, medical 3D printing was also employed for creating surgical guides and reproducing anatomical parts to be used, respectively, as templates or guides for specific tasks of the surgery and individualized implantable materials in reconstructive procedures.

Future expectations concern on one side is focused on the reduction of bioprinter costs and time to further increase the accessibility of 3D printing in surgery. While on the other, the development of novel techniques and materials suitable for 3D printing of biological structures by which recreating the architecture and functionality of real human organs and tissues is one the rise.