The similarities between real bone and the “fake” bone that can now be produced with a 3D inkjet printer are astonishing.  It looks like the real thing and it feels like the real thing.  It’s also as strong as the real thing and has no reported adverse side effects.

The research to have a 3D inkjet printer create bone-like material and structures was funded by the National Institutes of Health.  A large research team from Washington State University worked on this project, including doctoral student Gary Fielding, mechanical and materials engineering professor Amit Bandyopadhyay, and research assistant Solaiman Tarafder.  The research in total took four years, and required many different disciplines to be taken into account to have this creation brought to life: biology, chemistry, material science, and manufacturing.

The main and initially exciting finding behind the research was that adding zinc and silicon to the main material for the bone, calcium phosphate, doubled its strength.  The next exciting finding was that widely available ProMetal 3D printers could make metal objects.

The process is incredibly simple and easy compared to other procedures.  As Susmita Bose, a co-author of the research and professor at Washington State University’s School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering said, “If a doctor has a CT scan of a defect, we can convert it to a CAD file and make the scaffold according to the defect.”

How this works is that a CT scan image will be taken of the area that requires care.  The CT scanned image is then converted and formatted in such a way that the computer and the printer can read and process it.  The printer will spray a plastic binder over powder in small layers – 20 microns, or half the width of a human hair.  Then, through the guidance provided by a computer, a channelled cylinder which is about the size of an eraser found on a pencil tip is created.  This then creates the 3D bone-like substance creation.

The materials created in this way can be used in a number of different dental procedures, orthopaedic procedures, and it can also be used for osteoporosis.  What makes it really valuable amongst all other options is that when this bone-like material is paired up with real bone, it becomes like a scaffold for the new bone to grow on.  As the new bone grows, the material then dissolves, with no adverse side effects.

Here’s another benefit that everyone has got to love: the cost.  Some of the procedures before these bone models would result in people and the healthcare industry paying out hundreds if not thousands of dollars for the same treatments.  Depending on what you need, a 3D bone model can easily cost as low as $100. 

Though this is fairly new technology, it is a cost effective way of treatment and, so far, there have been no ill effects reported. If you ever have osteoarthritis, require dental work or need any sort of bone repair surgery, definitely look into this option.