The Digital Doctor: 3D Printing and Its Increasing Impact on Medicine
Dec. 2023
By Daniel Del Carpio
Edited by Ayah Amer
Introduction
What would you say if I told you that a broken hip could be fixed by the simple click of a mouse? That a computer could generate a replacement for your tooth, and you wouldn’t notice a difference? Or even that your own prescription pills could be customized in shape and texture to fit your exact bodily needs? This is the world we live in today thanks to the advancements of 3D printing technology in the medical field. What was once deemed as impossible and futuristic is now our reality and has greatly impacted many fields in medicine including dentistry, biomaterials, and drug administration.
Background
Since being invented in 1986 by Charles Hull, 3D printing has been primarily used for prototyping in professional fields and for creating gadgets and trinkets in the consumer market (Ventola, 2014). Over time, 3D printing has crept into the medical field. It first made an appearance in the year 2000 for the production of dental crowns and implants. Its lower production cost, higher precision and faster production have enabled it to play an integral role in many fields (Tian, Chen, et al., 2021).
Biomaterials
The advancements in 3D printing have broadened the horizons of the biomaterials field. Biomaterials work in transferring or restoring function to organs and tissues that have been damaged by disease or other forms of trauma (HHS, 2017). These materials are often made by processes such as casting and molding. Limitations of these methods include their lack of precision and the difficulty of specializing products from person to person. These problems are made evident in the crafting of hearing aids. Since everybody’s ear canals are shaped differently, the generic manufactured sizes that are assigned to a patient never fit perfectly and oftentimes require numerous visits to the doctor’s office for adjustments (Ventola, 2021). Through a virtual planning software, these hearing aids can be tailored with a high level of precision and prevent ear infections associated with improperly fitting hearing aids (Patel, Gupta, et al., 2023).
Dentistry
Artificially printed dental crowns and implants, which are the first applications of 3D technology in the medical field, are still in use today. More complex advancements, such as stereolithography–a 3D printing process utilizing lasers to solidify liquid resin layer by layer–have made it possible for many other subdisciplines of dentistry to implement 3D technology as a viable alternative for their procedures. (Pillai, Upadhyay, et al., 2021). For example, in the field of prosthodontics, which specializes in fitting and designing tooth replacements, 3D printing technology has been used to create artificial dentures and bridges that can serve as replacements for one or more missing teeth. These artificially made dental bridges can sustain a heavier load than traditionally made bridges due to the high precision of 3D-printed models. In orthodontics, mouth models provide a blueprint for how retainers will fit, as they contain measurements of spacing, arch form, and tooth angles. (Pillai, Upadhyay, et al., 2021). These are often done by having patients bite down on a tray filled with a molding material. 3D printing mixed with intraoral scanning creates models that are less resource-dependent and just as accurate as previous methods, at faster rates. (Christopoulou, 2022).
Drug Administration
Oral tablets are one of the most commonly used forms of drug administration. Although they have many upsides, such as accurate dosing, ease of manufacture, pain avoidance and patient compliance, they are limited in the sense that these medications are not personalized and lack novel drug release profiles (Ventola, 2021). 3D printing achieves these innovative drug release profiles by printing a drug carrier that only degrades and releases its medication in a targeted part of the body (Gao, Ahn, et al., 2021). This allows for drug administration in parts of the body that have trouble receiving the treatment through traditional oral tablets, such as the eyes, heart and joints.
Conclusion
After reviewing just a few different fields that 3D printing has impacted, it becomes apparent that its role in medicine will continue to grow. With time and inevitable technological advancements, 3D printing will only become more accurate and its applications further expanded in different fields. Embracing these advancements will allow for the continuous improvement of patient care in the medical field.
References
Ventola C. L. (2014). Medical Applications for 3D Printing: Current and Projected Uses. P & T : a peer-reviewed journal for formulary management, 39(10), 704–711.
Tian, Y., Chen, C., Xu, X., Wang, J., Hou, X., Li, K., Lu, X., Shi, H., Lee, E. S., & Jiang, H. B. (2021). A Review of 3D Printing in Dentistry: Technologies, Affecting Factors, and Applications. Scanning, 2021, 9950131. https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/9950131
Pillai, S., Upadhyay, A., Khayambashi, P., Farooq, I., Sabri, H., Tarar, M., Lee, K. T., Harb, I., Zhou, S., Wang, Y., & Tran, S. D. (2021). Dental 3D-Printing: Transferring Art from the Laboratories to the Clinics. Polymers, 13(1), 157. https://doi.org/10.3390/polym13010157
Della Bona, A., Cantelli, V., Britto, V. T., Collares, K. F., & Stansbury, J. W. (2021). 3D printing restorative materials using a stereolithographic technique: a systematic review. Dental materials : official publication of the Academy of Dental Materials, 37(2), 336–350. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dental.2020.11.030
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). (2017). Biomaterials. National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. https://www.nibib.nih.gov/science-education/science-topics/biomaterials
Christopoulou, I., Kaklamanos, E. G., Makrygiannakis, M. A., Bitsanis, I., Perlea, P., & Tsolakis, A. I. (2022). Intraoral Scanners in Orthodontics: A Critical Review. International journal of environmental research and public health, 19(3), 1407. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19031407
Gao, G., Ahn, M., Cho, W. W., Kim, B. S., & Cho, D. W. (2021). 3D Printing of Pharmaceutical Application: Drug Screening and Drug Delivery. Pharmaceutics, 13(9), 1373. https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics13091373
Patel, P., Dhal, K., Gupta, R., Tappa, K., Rybicki, F. J., & Ravi, P. (2023). Medical 3D Printing Using Desktop Inverted Vat Photopolymerization: Background, Clinical Applications, and Challenges. Bioengineering (Basel, Switzerland), 10(7), 782. https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering10070782
