THREE-DIMENSIONAL PRINTING AND PATIENT-SPECIFIC SOLUTIONS IN ORTHOPEDIC SURGERY: A NARRATIVE REVIEW
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Keywords
Three-dimensional printing; additive manufacturing; orthopedics; patient-specific instrumentation; surgical planning; custom implants; tissue engineering
Abstract
Three-dimensional printing, also known as additive manufacturing, has emerged as an important technology in orthopedic surgery. Unlike conventional subtractive manufacturing, three-dimensional printing creates physical objects layer by layer from digital models. This approach enables the production of patient-specific anatomical models, surgical guides, instruments, implants, orthoses, and tissue-engineering scaffolds. Orthopedic surgery is particularly suited to this technology because bones can be accurately reconstructed from computed tomography images and converted into printable models. Evidence published between 2010 and 2019 suggests that three-dimensional printing may improve the understanding of complex anatomy, facilitate preoperative planning, reduce operative time and fluoroscopic exposure, and increase the accuracy of selected procedures. Applications have been described in orthopedic trauma, arthroplasty, spinal surgery, deformity correction, orthopedic oncology, and medical education. Nevertheless, widespread adoption is limited by production time, cost, image-segmentation errors, material restrictions, regulatory requirements, and a shortage of high-quality comparative clinical studies. This narrative review discusses the workflow, principal orthopedic applications, potential benefits, limitations, and future directions of three-dimensional printing based on literature published from 2010 to 2019.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
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Dr. Parvinder Singh Arora
Associate Professor, Department of Orthopedics, Santosh Medical College, Ghaziabad
Dr. Akshay Kumar Saxena
Associate Professor, Department of Orthopedics, Rama Medical College
Dr. Sanyukta Phukan
Professor, Department of Radiology, Rama Medical College
Dr. Gagan Sakuja
Professor, ENT, Saraswathi Institute Of Medical Sciences
Dr. Nitesh Kumar Thakur
Professor, Department of Radiology, Saraswathi Institute Of Medical Sciences
