3D Printing Custom Bioactive and Absorbable Surgical Screws, Pins, and Bone Plates for Localized Drug Delivery

Abstract

Additive manufacturing has great potential for personalized medicine in osseous fixation surgery, including maxillofacial and orthopedic applications. The purpose of this study was to demonstrate 3D printing methods for the fabrication of patient-specific fixation implants that allow for localized drug delivery. 3D printing was used to fabricate gentamicin (GS) and methotrexate (MTX)-loaded fixation devices, including screws, pins, and bone plates. Scaffolds with different infill ratios of polylactic acid (PLA), both without drugs and impregnated with GS and MTX, were printed into cylindrical and rectangular-shaped constructs for compressive and flexural strength mechanical testing, respectively. Bland PLA constructs showed significantly higher flexural strength when printed in a Y axis at 100% infill compared to other axes and infill ratios; however, there was no significant difference in flexural strength between other axes and infill ratios. GS and MTX-impregnated constructs had significantly lower flexural and compressive strength as compared to the bland PLA constructs. GS-impregnated implants demonstrated bacterial inhibition in plate cultures. Similarly, MTX-impregnated implants demonstrated a cytotoxic effect in osteosarcoma assays. This proof of concept work shows the potential of developing 3D printed screws and plating materials with the requisite mechanical properties and orientations. Drug-impregnated implants were technically successful and had an anti-bacterial and chemotherapeutic effect, but drug addition significantly decreased the flexural and compressive strengths of the custom implants.

3D-Printed Drug Delivery Systems: The Effects of Drug Incorporation Methods on Their Release and Antibacterial Efficiency

“…For the drug loaded samples, it was 155 ± 12, 157 ± 4, 150 ± 6 and 151 ± 10 MPa for p2.5, p7.5, s2.5 and s7.5, respectively. Similar results for 3D printed samples were reported by Tappa et al [34] when loading polylactic acid (PLA) with GS. They loaded PLA with GS at 2.5% (w/w) and observed a decrease in the compression EM by 48%.…”

3D Printing of Drug-Loaded Thermoplastic Polyurethane Meshes: A Potential Material for Soft Tissue Reinforcement in Vaginal Surgery

“…This was achieved using a single screw extruder coating the TPU pellets with LFX. This method has been previously used with successful results [14,19,31,32]. This is a quick way to obtain good mixtures between the drug and the polymer using a single screw extruder that is more accessible than a complicated and expensive twin-screw extruder.…”

3D Printed Tablets (Printlets) with Braille and Moon Patterns for Visually Impaired Patients

“…At present, 3D printing is often used to produce engineering prototypes due to its fast production speed and cost-effectiveness [20][21][22][23]. In the field of drug delivery, diverse constructs were already prepared using 3D printing ranging from drug-eluting implants [24][25][26][27] to medical devices [28][29][30], and personalised solid oral dosage forms [31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39]. In particular, 3D printing was shown to offer novel solutions to problems faced by specific patient groups [40][41][42][43][44].…”