3D Printing for the Clinic: Examining Contemporary Polymeric Biomaterials and Their Clinical Utility

Abstract

The advent of additive manufacturing offered the potential to revolutionize clinical medicine, particularly with patient specific implants across a range of tissue types. However, to date, there are very few examples of polymers being used for additive processes in clinical settings. The state of the art with regards to 3D printable polymeric materials being exploited to produce novel clinically relevant implants is discussed here. We focus on the recent advances in the development of implantable, polymeric medical devices and tissue scaffolds, without diverging extensively into bioprinting. By introducing the major 3D printing techniques along with current advancements in biomaterials, we hope to provide insight into how these fields may continue to advance while simultaneously reviewing the ongoing work in the field.

Recent Developments of Biomaterials for Additive Manufacturing of Bone Scaffolds

“…Although the autogenous bone graft, allogeneic bone graft and traditionally processed tissue engineering scaffolds have been widely used in the clinic, the applications of additive manufacturing have gained greater popularity in the field of bone surgery both in scope and number for the last few years. [13,244,245] As patient-specific treatment and personalized medicine become more and more popular in medicine, the situation of AM is almost the same in surgical fields, especially for the creation of customized implants. The creation of preoperative modeling and patient-specific implant further allows the finite element analysis, so as to estimate and deal with stresses via the implant and those seen from adjacent structures.…”

“…[271] Incomplete bioabsorption of synthetic polymers, acidic environment generated after degradation and potential toxicity of generated monomers to tissues should be considered. [13] The clinical limitation of ceramicbased bone scaffolds may come from its inherent brittleness and the toxic additives used in the printing process. [270] In addition, current research in 3D printing of patient-specific scaffolds for bone reconstruction is primarily focused on designing scaffolds with desirable architecture (pore size, geometry, and shape), chemistry and microstructure, but insufficient in exploring the www.advancedsciencenews.com www.advhealthmat.de effects of physicochemical properties of biomaterials on the biological behavior of bone repair, especially for the larger bone defects.…”

“…[ 12 ] Although the polymer‐based materials have good printability, the main clinical applications of commercialization for 3D printed medical devices are limited to hearing aids, dental implants, prosthetics, and surgical guides/anatomical models for surgical planning. [ 13 ] In fact, few 3D printed the compatible, degradable polymer biomaterials are approved for bone reconstruction by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), even using the traditional manufacturing method. [ 13,14 ] Besides, the bio‐ceramics (especially calcium‐phosphate (CaP) based ceramics) have been widely used in the clinic as fillers for bone defects to promote bone regeneration.…”

“…[ 13 ] In fact, few 3D printed the compatible, degradable polymer biomaterials are approved for bone reconstruction by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), even using the traditional manufacturing method. [ 13,14 ] Besides, the bio‐ceramics (especially calcium‐phosphate (CaP) based ceramics) have been widely used in the clinic as fillers for bone defects to promote bone regeneration. As a new material processing method, 3D printed bio‐ceramic products have not been fully transformed clinically and they still face multiple challenges.…”

Synthesis and Characterization of a New Nanocomposite Film Based on Polyvinyl Alcohol Polymer and Nitro Blue Tetrazolium Dye as a Low Radiation Dosimeter in Medical Diagnostics Application

“…The increasing interest related to the design of this kind of polymers is explained by their use in a wide range of biomedical applications as diverse as tissue engineering, drug delivery, therapeutics, diagnostics, and so on [22][23][24][25][26]. Over the last decade, the methods for the synthesis of polymers, processing, and characterization have been developing rapidly, which brings both challenges and opportunities to design novel polymeric bio-materials [27][28][29][30][31].…”