4.8 Review

3D Printing of Physical Organ Models: Recent Developments and Challenges

Journal

ADVANCED SCIENCE
Volume 8, Issue 17, Pages -

Publisher

WILEY
DOI: 10.1002/advs.202101394

Keywords

3D printing; physical organ models; polymer materials; surgical applications

Funding

  1. National Nature Science Foundation of China [81827804]
  2. Science Fund for Creative Research Groups of the National Natural Science Foundation of China [51821093]

Ask authors/readers for more resources

Physical organ models that replicate patient anatomy play crucial roles in modern medical diagnosis and treatment. Despite the potential of 3D printing technology, the clinical application of organ models is hindered by cost, poor performance, and accuracy issues. Researchers need to focus on understanding the requirements in different scenarios, selecting suitable 3D printing methods/materials, and reducing cost and simplifying the process.
Physical organ models are the objects that replicate the patient-specific anatomy and have played important roles in modern medical diagnosis and disease treatment. 3D printing, as a powerful multi-function manufacturing technology, breaks the limitations of traditional methods and provides a great potential for manufacturing organ models. However, the clinical application of organ model is still in small scale, facing the challenges including high cost, poor mimicking performance and insufficient accuracy. In this review, the mainstream 3D printing technologies are introduced, and the existing manufacturing methods are divided into directly printing and indirectly printing, with an emphasis on choosing suitable techniques and materials. This review also summarizes the ideas to address these challenges and focuses on three points: 1) what are the characteristics and requirements of organ models in different application scen arios, 2) how to choose the suitable 3D printing methods and materials according to different application categories, and 3) how to reduce the cost of organ models and make the process simple and convenient. Moreover, the state-of-the-art in organ models are summarized and the contribution of 3D printed organ models to various surgical procedures is highlighted. Finally, current limitations, evaluation criteria and future perspectives for this emerging area are discussed.

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.8
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
No Data Available