Xilloc is pushing the boundaries in skeletal reconstructive surgery once again. Teaming up with Next21, a Japanese company that is an innovator in medical technology and a specialist in biomedical ceramic printing, Xilloc is on the verge of licensing and releasing a new technology for bone implants in the European market- it’s called CT-Bone.

The WASProject has announced that they are teaming with the Rizzoli Orthopedic Institute to bring not one, but two separate 3D printed medical innovations into reality.  “We’re developing 3D printers with bigger sizes and bigger nozzles,” explained WASP’s founder, Massimo Moretti. 

3DPrint reported, "Upon seeing Han Han, the medical team at the Hunan Province Brain Hospital elected to perform an unheard of life-saving surgery which they called (translated from chinese) “whole brain shrinking plastic surgery”.

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery expert Dr Mohd Nazimi Abd Jabar came up with a 3D-printed facial implant to treat a patient who was involved in a severe car accident that left her with facial defects.

In a first for the country, surgeons in Brazil have announced that they have successfully implanted 3D-printed titanium plates into the skull of a 23-year-old woman who had fractured the bones across the right side of her head. 

Dr. Sathish Vasishta, a craniomaxillofacial surgeon, and Dr. Derick Mendonca, a consulting plastic surgeon, used a 3D printed model provided by Osteo3D, a Bangalore, India-based company backed by the df3d design factory, to successfully plan and perform an Orbital Hupertelorism surgical procedure at Sakra Hospital in Bangalore.

After arriving at ER of Chung-Ang University Hospital, South Korean Woman was diagnosed with Subarachnoid Brain Hemorrhage following CT scans confirmation. As the brain collapsed, patient needed skull transplant for which the neurosurgeons approached to 3D Printed Skull using pure titanium.

Bentley Yoder, a 7-month old was born with encephalocele, rare congenital defect that causes brain to grow outside of the skull. Using 3D Printing technology, Dr. John Meara at Boston Children’s Hospital was able to perform reconstructive surgery and 5 hours later, Bentley was reported to be doing well in recovery.

BioArchitects announced today the 510(k) clearance by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration – FDA, for the company’s 3D printed patient specific titanium cranial/craniofacial plate implant. Starting from CT scan or MRI of the affected area, the image is then imported into a highly sophisticated computer design program, which is used to create a template of the repair that becomes the model from which the 3D printer produces the titanium plate which is the exact fit for the defect.

French-based company 3DCeram worked with Dr. Joël Brie and the maxillofacial surgery department at Limoges University Hospital to develop Cranial Prosthetics using 3D Printing technology. The 3D Printer used is Ceramaker which utilizes pastes made from photopolymers combined with alumina, zirconia or hydroxypatite (HA) and can 3D Print Cranial Prosthesis in about 48 hours using SLA Technology.

Melbourne neurosurgeon Paul d'Urso and founder of Anatomics had been making customized 3D print cranial implants such as custom sternum and ribcage for cancer patients. But the Australian Private Funds have denied rebates as the 3D printed implants are not regulated or listed on the federal government's Prostheses list. They are looking forward for more support so that the industry would be able to process Australia's abundant titanium into the inks and powders used in 3D printing.

CADskills, a medical device startup from Belgium uses 3D Printing Technology to produce patient-specific implants for craniomaxillofacial (CMF) and neurosurgery patients, including its innovative AMSJI, a new generation of subperiosteal implant for extreme maxillary atrophy. To counter bone atrophy, AMSJI eliminates the bone grafting process and its months of recovery time and the surgery takes around 1 hour. These Titanium implants are 3D Printed using Mimics Innovation Suite (MIS) from Materialise.

A 3D Printing Course Additive was released by Researchers from US and Canada, further strengthening the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) 2018 Hands-On 3D printing course, which aims at creating 3D Printed cranio-maxillofacial (CMF), orthopaedic, and renal cancer models using 3D Printing, Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR). The image processing was provided by Mimics inPrint, allowing the researchers to fabricate anatomic regions of interest from the DICOM data. Three cases were followed: Pelvic fracture, Mandible tumour and Kidney tumour where 3D printed models were used to plan the pre-operative as well as reduce time and increase efficacy of the surgeries.

L.E.Murr, a researcher from the University of Texas at El Paso, wrote an overview of how 3D printing of Metal and Alloy Implants using powder bed fusion technologies, especially with commercial laser and electron beam systems, has rapidly emerged worldwide. He emphasized on key points: Applications of solidification fundamentals to powder bed fusion fabrication; Fundamentals of powder bed fusion AM of complex and porous biomedical implants; Design strategies for fabricating porous, optimized metal and alloy biomedical implants by powder bed fusion technologies and Examples of porous, powder-bed fabricated implants which included: Custom-built cranial/maxillofacial/implants and surgical, pre-operative models; 3D printed, open-cellular structure spinal implants; 3D implant designs for total hip arthroplasty; Total knee arthroplasty and open-cellular implant components and Complex skeletal reconstruction implants: personalization of implant fabrication through hospital point-of-care, 3D printing centers.