3D-printed bone scaffolds
Additive manufacturing lets scaffold architecture be specified directly — and patient-specific.
Conventional scaffold fabrication produces porous material with statistically distributed pores. 3D printing specifies architecture directly: pore size, shape, interconnectivity, and gradients across the construct become design parameters rather than by-products. With advances in tissue engineering, materials science, and printing technology, 3D-printed artificial bone scaffolds have become an active strategy for treating large-segment bone defects.
Two capabilities matter most. Architecture can be tuned for the competing demands of porosity versus strength, including channels that address the diffusion limit directly. And geometry can be patient-specific — printed from a patient's imaging to match a defect exactly, which is particularly valuable in craniofacial reconstruction.
Printed constructs are frequently combined with bioactive molecules and cells, and increasingly with vascularized tissue flaps. Printing the structure has proved considerably easier than making it live — the biology, not the manufacturing, remains the constraint. See also Biofabrication and 3D bioprinting.
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