Medical 3D printing utility extends to flexible devices

Additive manufacturing techniques are becoming increasingly established in the medical arena, with their ability to produce highly personalised objects proving invaluable manufacturing such things as hearing aids, dental crowns and implants, and components of prosthetics.

However, up until now use of the techniques has been limited to items which are rigid, or at least mostly so. Engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have been working on this problem, and have developed a process to make pliable 3D printed mesh materials whose flexibility and toughness can be tailored to support and emulate the soft tissues in the body such as muscle and tendon. Such structures might find utility as personalised supports for knees and ankles, or implantable supportive structures such as hernia meshes.

The research was carried out by post-doc mechanical engineer Sebastian Pattinson, who has since transferred to Cambridge University, and colleagues.

"3D-printed clothing and devices tend to be very bulky," Pattinson said. "We were trying to think of how we can make 3D-printed constructs more flexible and comfortable, like textiles and fabrics."