By Sean Fenske, Editor-in-Chief

In a relatively short period of time, 3D printing has advanced significantly. It’s a technology that can be used across virtually every manufacturing sector, offering an array of benefits and capabilities. It’s transitioned from being a design and development tool to becoming a method for producing low-volume production quantities. Further, its value for manufacturing a single, custom solution cannot be overstated.

In addition, the materials that can be used for 3D printing have grown substantially. Early processes were only able to employ specific resins. Now, a wide variety of plastics and metals can be leveraged to output results. Further, novel materials with specialized characteristics are being provided to the market, garnering even more unique prints.

One company supplying materials intended specifically for the medical and healthcare industry is Stratasys. They are offering a line that ultimately provides human anatomy to be printed that looks and feels like their natural counterparts. Sharing more details on these remarkable materials is Ido Bitan, Director of Product Management, Medical Solutions, at the company. In this Q&A, he offers information on exactly what these materials facilitate and where medical 3D printing is headed.

Sean Fenske: What is medical 3D printing? What applications does it encompass?

Ido Bitan: Well, that’s a big question!

At the simplest level, medical 3D printing includes anything that is 3D printed for the medical or healthcare industry. This involves multiple segments, some of which are more traditional. For example, if you’re a medical device manufacturer and want to 3D print a jig for the manufacturing floor, that falls under medical 3D printing. For that purpose, it may need to meet a standard for biocompatibility as well as ISO and regulatory requirements.

Another example would be in the development of a medical device. If I’m designing a new product with which to treat a patient, I want to test it; I want to have a prototype I can feel and manipulate before moving into mass production. And again, since we’re dealing with a medical device, I must ensure it meets with all guidelines for such a product.

Training and educational purposes would present another type of medical 3D printing example. I can’t think of a better educational tool than enabling a doctor or student to hold an organ in their hands. And it could even be patient- or case-specific, which leads me to my next example.

Using medical 3D printing to allow a surgeon to plan a procedure offers them a unique opportunity not afforded through other means. The doctor can determine the best course of action, ideal approach, potential challenges, and more. Since they can see the patient’s anatomy and handle it, they get a clear picture of what’s ahead for the surgery.

Finally, medical 3D printing can be used to assist with a surgical procedure beyond the planning phase. During the actual procedure, the surgeon can use cutting guides that are printed for the specific patient on the table. They account for the unique properties of that patient—size of a tumor or a bone and location of surrounding tissue and organs. The surgeon is provided a patient-specific template for the procedure.

There are a number of other applications for medical 3D printing, but these are some of the primary ones.

Fenske: What materials is Stratasys using for medical 3D printing?

Bitan: Stratasys owns five different technologies, each of which can be used for medical 3D printing in an array of material options. The polyjet printers are ideal for printing anatomical models, created with our exclusive advanced medical materials with validated biomechanical properties for training, education, or pre-surgical planning. Our fused deposition modeling (FDM) printers can be used to print the cutting guides I mentioned earlier. Or, our powder solution can be used to print insoles. Finally, the Origin printer can print prototypes of a medical device.

But these types of technologies are not unique to Stratasys. They are an option we can offer, but the novel materials are those that mimic human anatomy. For these, we use jetting technology and are able to mix the different materials to replicate the look, feel, and characteristics of human tissue, bone, and organs. That’s what truly differentiates Stratasys materials from other 3D printing providers.

Fenske: These sound remarkable. What benefits do these materials offer?

Bitan: Before I share the advantages, let me be sure to clarify an important point. We are not bioprinting human organs with these materials. These are not implanted into a person or used in place of a real organ. They are simply intended to mimic the feel and look of natural organs. However, that provides substantial benefits.

These unique materials each simulate a different capability or mechanical property, ultimately resulting in what looks and feels like a real human organ, bone, or tissue. These materials accurately reflect the biomechanical properties of the part of the body they are intended to mimic. For example, we have a material called TissueMatrix. As its name suggests, it mimics the softest tissue in our body. We also have GelMatrix, RadioMatrix, and BoneMatrix, in addition to all of our standard material offerings that enable color, transparency, etc.

When combined in the correct amounts, these materials can be printed and allow for a surgical procedure to be performed on them. The printed anatomy will respond to the procedure and surgical instruments in the same manner as its actual human counterpart. This allows a doctor to move beyond the pre-planning of surgery and try the surgery ahead of time on the printed duplicate.

Fenske: BoneMatrix sounds interesting. Can you share more about that one?

Bitan: BoneMatrix gives our plastics the ability to behave like real bones. By that, I mean it reacts like real human bone would react, such as during a surgical procedure. So, for example, if you had a traditional plastic shaped like a bone and tried drilling into it or placing an orthopedic screw, it could crack or a part break off. With BoneMatrix, the plastic adjusts to the drill; it adapts just as bone would. If I saw into the BoneMatrix, it responds like bone. It’s not flexible, but rather, it maintains an impact resistance that replicates how natural bone would react.

In addition, possibly just as important as reacting as bone would to surgical instruments and procedures, the feel or haptics are a match as well. If a surgeon is using our BoneMatrix product to simulate a patient’s anatomy to practice a procedure, it’s just as important to have the printed version provide the correct feel when they are cutting into the bone. We’ve worked with surgeons and other professionals to ensure we mimic bone both inside the model as well as how it feels to those performing the procedures.

We also have bone “templates” that allow for different bones to be printed using these “recipes.” These provide the right material mix to be used to replicate the different bones in the body, such as the skull or femur. This is a plug-and-play capability customers can take advantage of without needing to discover the right mix for their needs.

Further, the material mix can be adjusted to make the bone softer, harder, or whatever characteristic is required. For that aspect, a greater level of understanding is required, but it does demonstrate the flexibility of the platform.

Fenske: How is Bonematrix being used? What are the types of applications for which it is intended?

Bitan: Well, as I explained, this is really intended to be a tool for surgeons to practice a procedure on a model that reacts and feels like natural bone. But where we see this headed is that every surgical procedure will involve a 3D-printed model of the specific patient’s anatomy. It doesn’t make sense to me to have the surgeon faced with a challenging procedure perform it for the very first time on the actual patient. They can try multiple approaches, determine the best angles, and identify the best instrumentation for each step.

I like to share a quote from one of our partner surgeons who said, “Are we better surgeons? I don’t think so. Do we have more practice? Yes!” and that’s the essence of why we’re providing these materials.

Fenske: Although I think you’ve made it fairly clear already, I’m still going to ask what makes this product different from other solutions?

Bitan: A significant differentiator is we’re not just making this claim of being able to mimic natural anatomy. We can provide the data to support those claims as well.

Stratasys has been developing solutions for 3D printing for more than 30 years. We’re not new to this and all of our experience has culminated with our ability to offer these revolutionary products for the medical space. We’ll continue to push the envelope on the technology and serve as a guide for companies anywhere along the way on the 3D printing journey. 

Fenske: Do you have any additional comments you’d like to share based on any of the topics we discussed or something you’d like to tell medical device manufacturers?

Bitan: The future for 3D printing for medical is clear and we’re on our way. That is, the 3D printing of organs that can replace those in the human body. It’s a challenge many companies are working on but perhaps in 20 years from now, we’ll have a new paradigm in healthcare where replacement organs can be printed and implanted into those who need them. It’s remarkable to think about, but we’re constantly making strides that steer us in that direction.

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