Potential of artificial bones made with 3D printing Thursday, 24 August 2017

A new artificial bone design has been developed that can be customised and made with a 3D printer for stronger, safer and more effective bone replacements.

Hossein Montazerian from the University of British Columbia in Canada says human bones are incredibly resilient, but when things go wrong, replacing them can be a painful process, requiring multiple surgeries.

“When designing artificial bone scaffolds it’s a fine balance between something that is porous enough to mix with natural bone and connective tissue, but at the same time strong enough for patients to lead a normal life,” he said.

“We’ve identified a design that strikes that balance and can be custom built using a 3D printer.”

Traditional bone grafting is used to treat anything from traumatic fractures to defects, and requires moving bone from one part of the body to another. But Montazerian says his artificial bone grafts could be custom printed to potentially fit any patient and wouldn’t require transplanting existing bone fragments.

In his research, Montazerian analysed 240 different bone graft designs and focused on just the ones that were both porous and strong. He printed those that performed the best using a 3D printer and then ran physical tests to determine how effective they would be under load in the real world.

“A few of the structures really stood out,” he said. “The best designs were up to 10 times stronger than the others and since they have properties that are much more similar to natural bone, they’re less likely to cause problems over the long term.”

He now hopes to produce bone grafts that will be ultra-porous, where the bone and connective tissues meet and are extra-strong at the points under the most stress. The ultimate goal is to produce a replacement that almost perfectly mimics real bone.

[Hossein Montazerian demonstrates the artificial bone design that can be made with a 3D printer. Photo UBC Okanagan]