The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), has spread through more than 180 countries, leading to diverse health systems overload around the world. Because of the high number of patients and the supply chain disruption, it generated a shortage of medical devices and personal protective equipment. In this context, initiatives from the additive manufacturing community emerged to fight the lack of devices. Diverse designs were produced and are currently being used in hospitals by patients and health workers. However, as some devices must follow strict standards, these products may not fulfill these standards. Therefore, to ensure the user's health, there is a need for understanding each device, their usage, and standards. This study reviews the use of additive manufacturing during COVID-19 pandemic. It gathers the source of several 3D printed devices such as face shields, face masks, valves, nasopharyngeal swabs, and others, discussing their use and regulatory issues. In this regard, the major drawbacks of the technology, addressed for the next pandemic scenario, are highlighted. Finally, some insights of the future of additive manufacturing during emergency are given and discussed.
Aim: To produce valves to be used with full-face snorkeling masks for noninvasive ventilation (NIV) procedure during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Materials & methods: ISINNOVA’s Charlotte valves for full-face snorkeling masks used for NIV procedures were redesigned, produced by selective laser sintering additive manufacturing, and submitted to air leakage tests. Results: The final model assembly did not present air leakage during the NIV procedure on human models, minimizing risks of air contamination. Conclusion: This study shows the feasibility of using additive manufactured valves with snorkel facial masks to support health systems during COVID-19 and possible future pandemics.
Abstract3D printing has emerged as a first‐line approach for the fabrication of complex structures. In the biomedical field, extrusion‐based is the most popular printing technique. However, a limited range of biocompatible printable inks is available for this technique because, typically, low‐viscosity inks are not printable, or the resulting constructs are unable to self‐support. In this work, use of the Freeform Reversible Embedding of Suspended Hydrogels (FRESH) extrusion‐based technique to fabricate self‐supported 3D constructs from low‐viscosity polysaccharide inks composed of methacrylated hyaluronic acid (HA(GM)) and methacrylated pectin (PEC(GM)) is aimed. The use of a support bath of gelatin slurry to sustain the extruded filaments during both printing and post curing allows reaching a shape fidelity so far unreported for low‐viscosity polysaccharide inks. Moreover, the methacrylate groups of HA(GM) and PEC(GM) lead to double crosslinked hydrogels, where the calcium ions added to the gelatin slurry promote the ionotropic gelation of PEC(GM), while the methacrylate groups of both PEC(GM) and HA(GM) promote their photocrosslinking after UV irradiation. The resulting 3D constructs exhibit elastic modulus in the range of 0.5–2.3 kPa, which is suitable for the 3D printing of constructs for soft tissue repair or substitution.
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