3D Printing: Medical Applications

Scientists in Israel recently unveiled a 3D print of a heart with human tissue and vessels using a patient's cells. While the 3D printed heart remains a far way off, scientists hope one day to be able to produce hearts suitable for transplant into humans as well as heal defective hearts.

Additive manufacturing (AM) also known as 3D printing is based on the principle of layered manufacturing, in which materials are overlapped layer by layer. This technology can be used to quickly fabricate components with complex shape by accurately accumulating material using solid modeling according to a computer-aided design (CAD) model or computed tomography (CT) scan

3D printing have many exciting uses as well as present and potential medical applications. Below are possible medical applications of 3D printing.

Organ Printing
3D printing can be used to produce human organ and tissue structures which can be integrated with bio-compatible microfluidics to create highly complex structures to mimic the function of native human organs. Scientific breakthrough in this field has the potential to revolutionize medicine, making organ transplants obsolete

Prostheses
Compared with fabricating implants by means of traditional machining technology, 3D printing can
achieve personalized real-time manufacturing of any complex implant with high dimensional accuracy and short production cycles.

Surgical Planning
Surgeries like complex congenital heart condition require a highly skilled and experienced surgeon. Unforeseen finding intra-op has been shown to increase adverse surgical outcome. However, 3D models can assist surgeons to study the impaired organs before the operation, explore various approaches and acquire hands-on experience before entering the operating room.

Medical Education and Training
Using cadaveric materials to train medical students has been the subject of controversy. This is both due to ethical issues as well as the cost of the processes. 3D printing techniques may offer a novel and effective substitute by reproducing accurate complex anatomical organs.

Donor shortages for organ transplantations are a major clinical challenge worldwide. Three-dimensional (3D) printing technology holds the potential to solve these limitations.






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