3 Ways That 3D Printing Is Changing Medicine

When Charles Hull obtained a patent for the first commercial 3D printing machine in 1986, no one would have known that only 30 years later, the same technology would be providing medical professionals with the revolutionary tools needed to save the lives of individuals with unique health complications.

Since the ’80s, the world has seen 3D printing technology used to create objects both big and small, ranging from figurines and food to automobiles and rocket parts. Arguably the most important advancements that have been made with the help of 3D printing have been in the medical sector, where professionals are now able to help patients in the following innovative ways:

1. Affordable, Customized Prosthetic Limbs

In the United States, more than 2 million adults and children have lost limbs, not including those with congenital limb defects. The use of prosthetics as a treatment for limb loss goes back thousands of years, and mentions of artificial limbs can be seen in the historical records of ancient Egyptians, as well as BC-era Roman scholars.

Today’s manufactured prosthetics are typically created from plastics and metal, and the cost usually ranges from $5,000 to $50,000. In addition to being expensive to produce, a manufactured prosthetic limb can only withstand between three and five years of use before it needs to be replaced, making the cost unsustainable for the majority of patients. This is especially true for those children who have lost limbs. Their rapid growth necessitates new prostheses much more often.

However, the development of 3D printing has created a significantly more affordable method of prosthesis production. The process allows specifications to be altered via a computer and then printed to order, which is significantly cheaper than that required to manufacture prostheses en masse and then to size them individually according to the needs of each patient. The price of 3D-printed limbs costs families only a few hundred dollars at the most, with certain nonprofits offering them for less than $50. In addition, a 3D-printed limb may be available in as fast as a day, whereas traditional prosthetic limbs may take weeks or months to create.

2. Engineered Living Tissue

While it may resemble something out of a science fiction novel, the development of 3D printing has provided medical professionals with the technology needed to build living tissues through a method called bioprinting. Using layers of biodegradable plastic and a gel containing multitudes of live cells, researchers have been able to print structures filled with sponge-like micro-channels, which allow nutrients to pass through the tissue and keep the developing cells alive.

While the transplantation of these tissues and the development of functioning organs through bioprinting is still theorized to require at least 10 more years’ worth of development, scientists are using existing technology to further medical research in other significant ways. The ability to create living human tissues will have a significant impact on the way that drug therapies are tested. Not only could bioprinted human tissue eliminate the need for animal testing, but the development of the treatments could be significantly more accurate. By relying on reactions observed in human cells rather than those of rats, medical researchers will be able to see how patients’ bodies will react to a given drug with greater accuracy.

Another benefit of printing living human tissues is that doctors conducting risky operations on patients with life-threatening illnesses will be able to create replicas of patient organs or tumors. This will allow doctors to practice different methods of surgery to determine which of them will have the greatest chance of success prior to operating on a patient.

3. Creation of Bones and Implants

The world witnessed the first transplant of a 3D-printed bone structure in the Netherlands in 2012, when an 83-year-old patient with an infection required a new jawbone. Last year, a man with a cancerous tumor on his top two vertebrae received a transplant of two perfect copies of the bones created from metal, allowing him to retain the use of his limbs following the removal of the tumor.

The 3D printing technology used in this case enabled doctors to create exact replicas of existing bones in patients’ bodies from titanium and specially designed polymers. Thus far, these synthetic options have been used to create lifesaving anatomical structures for cancer patients and accident victims in the forms of body parts such as skull tops, rib cages, and sternums.

While these synthetic models are effective, bones constructed from a person’s own organic material are an ideal choice, as there is less of a likelihood of a transplant rejection. In order to provide patients and their surgeons with more options, some medical startups are focusing on a way to 3D-print bones out of a patient’s own genetic material.

A new method being tested in the development of bone grafts involves printing a scaffold identical to a patient’s bone and infusing it with stem cells extracted from the patient’s fat. The scaffold is then placed in a specialized chamber that stimulates natural cell growth, resulting in the creation of the osteoblasts needed for the generation of bone matter.