3D Printing and Patient-Matched Implants

Abstract

Patient-matched implants were one of the first great applications of 3D printing in medicine (Mankovich et al. 1990; Stoker et al. 1992; Binder and Kaye 1994; Komori et al. 1994). Even preceding the advent of 3D printing, surgeons were using crude, more manually constructed models to aid in design of a patient-matched implant for some of the most complex reconstructive surgeries, surgeries such as for reconstruction of pelvic discontinuity following tumor removal. An anatomical model which clearly displays the deficit one is trying to reconstruct and is a perfect application. Reported benefits for prefabricated implants include surgical time savings, ease of adaptation in surgery, perfected shape or design, and an ability to reconstruct anatomical areas that have no other alternatives from an implant standpoint (Hamid et al. 2016; McAloon 1997; Erickson et al. 1999; Taunton et al. 2012). In many of the initial cases, 3D printing was not used to create the actual implant, but instead it helped to facilitate the design, workflow, or manufacturing of tools used to create these implants. Surgeon adaptation of plates using an anatomical model is also tangentially related to the topic of patient-matched implants. This very “manual” technique for personalizing an implant has been a mainstay of medical modeling since the earliest days (Eppley and Sadove 1998).