2023, Vol. 27 ›› Issue (13): 2110-2115

Current status of 3D printing medical applications and center construction

Yang Lian1, Feng Haiyang2, Xu Yuanjing3   

Abstract: BACKGROUND: As the informational technology raising, 3D printing is applied widely in digital medicine. The importance of research and application of medical 3D printing focuses on the following perspectives: (1) printing organ pathology models and guid plate to aid in preoperative planning and adjuvant therapy; (2) creating custom prosthesis or implant scaffolds; and (3) creating personalized orthoses and braces; (4) fabricating viable tissues or organoids.  
OBJECTIVE: This paper described the application and advantages of 3D printing in digital medical industry, and summarized the current construction situations for 3D printing digital medical center in domestic and foreign market, as well as the registration approval of 3D printing medical devices, to provide experiences for the development of 3D printing digital medical industry.
METHODS: Databases of Wanfang, CNKI and PubMed were searched for relevant articles published from January 2010 to February 2022 with the key words of “3D printing technology, 3D printed orthoses, 3D bioprinting, medical applications, medical center” in Chinese or English. A few classic early articles were included. By reading the titles and abstracts, repetitive studies, low-quality or irrelevant articles were excluded. Finally, 60 articles were included for review.  
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: 3D printing technology and clinical medicine are tightly combined, and the cross-innovation of “medicine-industrial integration” has been realized through interdisciplinary innovative applications, and many scientific research innovations have been achieved. The construction of the 3D printing digital medical center will systematically train medical-engineering personnel for the hospital, and provide services such as image processing and cloud service system construction, and medical device printing, which also integrates digital medical technology and pushes the application of 3D printing to a new height in clinical practice.
Key words: 3D printing, digital medicine, medical application, center construction, medical device, advanced manufacturing technology