Patient-specific solutions from the 3D printer

Complex 3D printing can be used to produce individualized parts for medical technology purposes. Robin Day, Head of the Energy Beam Processes department at the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT, explains in an interview with COMPAMED-tradefair.com how companies are supported with advice and service.

How can you help medical technology companies?

Robin Day: We provide technical support, but also offer general advice. Inquiries are usually aimed at the manufacture of components that are very complex and expensive to produce. We check the general conditions before providing advice: How costly is the production? Additive manufacturing can be worthwhile for complex components consisting of many individual parts and the use of welding and soldering processes.

Even materials that are difficult to machine, such as nickel-based alloys or titanium alloys, are easier to produce in this way than by milling, especially with large machining volumes.

We deal almost exclusively with prototypes. However, we advise on the question of whether 3D printing should be integrated into in-house production by purchasing a printer or whether it makes more sense to commission a service provider.

What role does medical technology play in your consultations?

Day: Designs are rarely perfect straight away. In the fields of medicine and biotechnology, it is difficult to change a process if it means that previous studies are no longer valid. A certified, closed process that no longer needs to be changed is preferred.

Our aim is therefore to be involved in the planning at an early stage and to help shape the in vitro tests. In contrast to other industries, we are not working with other engineers here, but with doctors and biotechnology specialists. This requires adjustments on both sides.

What is the potential of additive manufacturing in medicine?

Day: The greatest potential lies in individual solutions for patients. Examples include dental implants or knee joints that can be reproduced and reused after a CT scan.

Midface fractures, where the structural part of a face has to be replaced, are more complex. Aesthetics play an important role here, as does design freedom when adapting individual solutions.

I see great development opportunities in biomedicine. Put simply, blood components are sorted and removed from dialysis patients. We can produce components with complex overflow channels that allow us to create the same process as with a centrifuge. In terms of production technology, this opens new dimensions.

What are the biggest hurdles for the use of additive manufacturing?

Day: We have high costs in manufacturing, automation plays an important role here and the question of how AI or machine learning can support this development.

For certification processes, it would be beneficial if application areas were grouped into classes, for example for joint implants or spinal implants. 

Which additive manufacturing applications could play an important role in the future?

Day: For me, the next topic is biological implants. They are created from our own cell cultures and are reused by the donor. By automating repetitive tasks, you can grow a muscle or a piece of bone, for example a finger bone.

If we combine production technologies such as biotechnology and classical production techniques, we can use 3D printed cores to form a basic structure along which muscle cells grow on a nutrient-loaded surface.

With the free-form possibility of 3D printing, we can recreate a finger in its original shape. The current method, on the other hand, is to take a rib, for example, and remove material until the shape is right.