A Review on Additive Manufacturing of Shape-Memory Materials for Biomedical Applications

Shape-memory materials (SMMs) are characterized by their unique ability to remember and recover their shape in response to external stimuli. Over recent decades, the use of SMMs in biomedical areas such as tissue engineering, drug delivery, endovascular surgery, orthodontics, orthopedics, etc. has attracted significant attention from both academia and industry. Recently, additive manufacturing (AM) has also attracted growing interest for biomedical applications because of its ability to produce on-demand, patient-tailored devices for medical treatments. This article provides a review of current state-of-the-art AM techniques for producing SMMs for biomedical applications. First, both shape-memory alloys and shape-memory polymers are discussed regarding their fundamental characteristics and compositions, and the general principles governing their shape-memory effects. Next, current and potential biomedical applications of SMMs are presented, then available AM techniques that have been used for the fabrication of SMM-based medical devices are discussed and explored. Finally, an outlook on AM of SMMs for biomedical applications is provided.