From complex reconstructive facial surgery to dentures and hip implants, surgeons across the UK are using 3D printing to improve treatments and save time and money for the National Health Service.
3D printing, or additive manufacturing, has been around since the 1980s, but it is only in recent years that advances in the technology mean it is playing a bigger role in healthcare.
Hospitals have long used it to make plastic anatomical models that mean surgery can be planned and practised before operations. Studies have shown this can reduce operating time for certain procedures by as much as 30 per cent.
But a growing number of surgeons and dentists are working with industrial designers and engineering companies to use the technology to produce custom-made 3D printed implants for complex orthopaedic and facial reconstruction procedures.
3D printing works by building objects up layer by layer, creating more accurate shapes than can be made using traditional techniques such as cast moulds or carving them out from chunks of material.
Satyajeet Bhatia, a consultant maxillofacial surgeon at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff, has worked with a team of neurosurgeons and ophthalmologists, and PDR, a design agency, to print implants to help reconstruct the faces of patients with craniofacial tumours. The implants are typically made out of peek – a biocompatible polymer – or titanium.
Surgeons embrace 3D printed implants to save NHS time and cash 
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