Welcome To The Future MedTech — 3D Printed Organ: The Future Of Transplantation

There is a major health crisis in terms of the shortage of organs. Since 2013, the total number of patients requiring a transplant has doubled while the number of available donor organs has remained relatively the same.

Multilayered skin, bones, muscle structures, blood vessels, retinal tissue and even mini-organs all have been 3D printed. None are approved for human use yet.

According to the Health Resources & Services Administration, every day 17 peoples die waiting for an organ transplant in the US. This issue is now a public health crisis. Fortunately, due to the advancement of technology, three-dimensional (3D)-printed organs have become a reality. In 2014, a California-based company called Organovo was the first to successfully engineer commercially available 3D-bioprinted human livers and kidneys.

Currently, the biggest challenge is to get the organs to function as they should. Despite the tremendous amount of progress being made in this field, Dr Anthony Atala and his colleagues at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine are conservative with their estimate about the number of years remaining before fully functioning 3D-printed organs can be implanted into humans.

In spite of the unknown timeline of when bioprinting organs can become an available option to patients, researchers are optimistic about the affordability of it for patients and their caregivers.