A team of researchers from Ohio State and Prairie View A&M University in Texas have made new strides toward 3D-printing customized bone implants for cancer patients. Credit: Courtesy of Dr. Jaejong Park
A team of researchers from Ohio State and Prairie View A&M University in Texas have made new strides toward 3D-printing customized bone implants for cancer patients.
Typically used for patients who undergo craniofacial surgeries and reconstructions, classic bone implants are usually a collection of titanium materials that can cost thousands of dollars, according to the study, published Jan. 20 in Micromachines. But by using a combination of multi-material designs and special optimization techniques, a group of engineers were able to ease wear and tear on the body from bone replacements with cheaper, more personalized options.
Alok Sutradhar, professor of mechanical engineering and director of Ohio State’s Sutradhar Research Lab — which specializes in designing materials based on structures found in nature — said his interest in biomedical design began as a postdoctoral student at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
“One thing you can think about is when you have a tumor, the location is different for each person, so you can’t find something commercially available like one-size-fits-all,” Sutradhar said. “That’s where this technique comes into the picture.”
Before, surgeons would perform bone grafts by taking bones from other parts of the body, breaking them, and shaping them into what they needed — often without any sort of engineering or individualized analysis, Jaejong Park, a professor at Prairie A&M and primary author of the study, said.
Now, with the latest advancements in multi-material 3D printing, the researchers were able to print bone implants with ranges of porosity and stiffness to fit the needs of different bones. Sutradhar said the practical applications of the project could help people recover from ailments ranging from blast injuries to serious bone defects.
His team were some of the first people to advocate the use of topology optimization techniques in biomedical design, which geometrically maps the injured or deformed area to design precise implants. That design is then printed with a multi-material polymer that is engineered to best work with the adjacent bone. It’s a delicate process, Sutradhar said.
“When you’re trying to create an implant design, you need to take care of it,” Sutradhar said.
But while taking care of implant designs, the team had to get creative to mold the materials for individual traumas.
After taking CT scans of patients’ injuries, the team creates 3D models of their skulls, prints them and experiments with embedding different kinds of implants into the counterfeit craniums.
However, there must be a certain balance between the bone and the implant.
Park said if the bone fractures rely too much on the surrounding implants, it could ruin the healing progress; the bone would recognize the work of the implant and get weaker. This, Park said, would lead to breakage in the long term.
As for next steps, Sutradhar said he’s optimistic about the future of the project.
“We envision, maybe in another 10 years, everyone would have a very highly optimized implant that is specially tailored for that person,” Sutradhar said. “We are not there yet, but hopefully we’ll be there soon.”
This research is the product of the project team’s partnership with the Department of Veterans Affairs and the National Science Foundation.
“We are happy that the VA and NSF are happy about this work,” Sutradhar said. “We are looking at new avenues and actually working with surgeons to get this into [the National Institute of Health] at this point.”
