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ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING

CHANGING MEDICAL IMPLANTS

Additive manufacturing provides new ways of making medical implants, but

its impact is greater than this.

Source: Modern Machine Shop

Moving from cast and machined knee implants (left) to metal 3D printed ones (center, right) has allowed Amplify Additive to implement new design
features like trabecular lattice and prove out designs more quickly.

dditive manufacturing scale; it is actually reshaping Making custom implants more
A (AM) has been used to what implants can do and how accessible. Rapid product de-
velopment leads to another
patients can be treated.
make medical implants
for more than a decade now. 3D advantage with 3D printing
printing technology has al- Here are four ways that 3D technology: Custom implants
lowed implant manufacturers printing is changing medical can likewise be developed and
to create complex geometries implants: made much more quickly. Pa-
that copy the shape and func- tients can have access to im-
tion of natural bone and to pro- Accelerating product develop- plants made to fit their bodies,
duce these items on an acceler- ment. 3D printing allows for resulting in easier surgeries
ated timeline. the creation of new kinds of and better health outcomes.
geometries, such as trabecu- Surgeons at the University of
But additive manufacturing’s lar lattices to encourage bone Miami recently created a 3D
role in the medical field contin- in-growth on a given implant. printed titanium talus bone for
ues to develop and mature. In a The technology offers not a patient with sickle cell dis-
recent issue of Additive Man- only the capability to create ease, for example. Rather than
ufacturing magazine, we high- and test these geometries, but fusing the patient’s ankle to
lighted a number of 3D printed to prototype them using the the hindfoot, a procedure that
STEPHANIE HENDRIXSON implant applications, ranging intended manufacturing pro- would have taken away her
Contributing Editor
Modern Machine Shop from devices used in success- cess and to do so quickly. When ability to move the foot, this
shendrixson@ ful, completed surgeries to re- the right design is found, the replacement talus was able to
mmsonline.com
search that will influence the implant can go into production preserve that mobility.
next generation of medical de- right away. As Ryan Hanes, VP
vices. Our reporting shows that of business development at im- Creating new opportunities
3D printing is not just an alter- plant maker Amplify Additive with biocompatible materials.
native method for manufactur- says, with additive, ‘the proto- 3D printing technology offers
ing hip cups and spine cages at type is the product’. new ways of working with

36 | May-June 2022 Modern Manufacturing India