“No two human individuals are identical. Even identical twins exhibit unique characteristics. But beyond genetics, every individual has unique life experiences.”
Over the centuries, the MedTech field has witnessed a lot of game-changers. Recently, Additive Manufacturing (3D Printing) is revolutionizing the modern era of medical innovations. What is meant by medical 3D Printing? It’s the manufacturing technology in which medical parts are built layer by layer according to the 3D digital file.
Ground-breaking Additive Manufacturing(AM) technology offers a wide range of opportunities to customize every individual’s solutions. When it comes to individualized solutions, medical technology is in great need. In medical AM, we see, 3D Printing significantly enables tailoring the needs in surgical planning, sophisticated prosthetics, and intricate implants. All of this can add value to the physicians to benefit the on-demand production at the point of care.
Specific Materials and Application:
For medical applications, the materials must be certified or sometimes biocompatible based on the application. Thus, people must embrace lots of regulations before implementation. We see innovations on the material and software are given significant focus in medical 3D Printing. On one side, high-performance polymers are given vital research importance for implants. On the flip side, developments in software aid quality and data preparation can escalate delivery rate.
Medical grade materials such as Titanium and Stainless Steel used in the implants, medical and surgical instruments are processed in Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS). Apart from that, Polyetheretherketone (PEEK) is a versatile material and has increasingly been used recently in the medical field. At the same time, Stereolithography (SLA) is extensively used for dental application, pre-operative planning, and surgical guides.
So what could be the challenges and realizations?
3D-printing in general and Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) technology, in particular, is used extensively in medical applications and is seen as a superior technology for the future. High-performance polymers impose few challenges to print with the ordinary FFF method printers, owing to their crystallinity, layer adhesion, and glass transition temperature.
The key challenges in medical 3D Printing are the process stability and the optimization of process parameters for varying geometry parts. Sound understanding and specific monitoring of the manufacturing process are necessary to improve the strength of the 3D Printing process. And the latest innovative digital-twin technology can be very constructive to optimize a process efficiently for varying geometries and applications.
At amuse, we help you plan efficiently for less time in pre-operative planning, with absolute certainty and confidence to work on more cases.
What’s more, 3D Printing for surgery planning and guides elevate your surgery quality outcome, thus join the medical experts who are already transforming the future of medical production.
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