3D Printing to Mend Broken Bones
3D technology isn’t just confined to the world of movies and has now moved into the medical arena, with the help of a new 3D printer.
Researchers from Washington State University have been using the 3D printer to create a bone-like material for the scaffolding of bone growth in dental work and orthopaedic treatments.
A combination of calcium phosphate, zinc and silicon is used in the inkjet printer, which using a CT scanned image to reproduce the bone in a 3D form, layering the image by half a human hair per sweep. Once the 3D copy is made it can be paired with the natural bone to aid growth and allow the new bone to grow correctly, but completely dissolves away once the new bone has replaced it.
Test upon rabbits and rats have been promising and the author of the study, Susmita Bose is predicting its future use, where such bones can be made to order for each patient.
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