4. 3D-printed implants
The Mayo Clinic Division of Engineering has four polymer implants used for a variety of applications. It’s now in the process of installing a 3D titanium printer.“We’d like to be printing custom implants for animal trials and human clinical trials within the next two or three years,” Wehde of Mayo Clinic said at DeviceTalks Minnesota last month. “When we started thinking about purchasing a metal printer, I asked one of our orthopedic surgeons whether this would be something that he would be interested in. He said, ‘Oh my gosh, yes, get that right now.’”
The goal is to create orthopedic implants that match the surgery that a patient needs, versus the surgeon having to do a surgery that matches the implants that are available, Wehde said.