Direct Metal Laser Sintering Technology (DMLS) is one of the additive technologies currently used for the manufacture of custom implants made of Ti-6Al-4V titanium alloy. Technology (EOSINT M280, EOS GmbH, Germany), titanium material and used software applications (Materialise, Belgium) facilitate the manufacture of implants while maintaining the bionic principles (mechanic, rheological and anthropometric).
For the verification purposes, in the manufacture process and in the post-processing the metrotomography technologies (Metrotom 1500, Carl Zeiss, Germany) and the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) were used. The analysis to compare the current CAD model and the STL model, defectoscopy after the manufacture, and the analyses of implants after the thermal processing and surface finishing were carried out.
Manufactured implants were successfully implanted at the Clinic of Stomatology and Maxillofacial Surgery of the Louis Pasteur University Hospital in Kosice, Slovakia, in cooperation with expert neurosurgeons and using the prepared navigation surgical guides.
Implant quality and surgical intervention success are significantly influenced by a proper implant design based on the communication with the clinical staff, by setting the parameters of the manufacture process (DMLS), as well as the post-processing parameters.
Radovan Hudak was born in 1976 in Košice, Slovakia. He received his MS and PhD degree in biomedical engineering at Technical University in Kosice in 2000 and 2008. Today Mr. Hudak is an associate professor and head of Biomedical Engineering Division at the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Measurement, Technical University of Kosice, Slovakia. His research interests include additive manufacturing in medicine, human biomechanics and medical thermography. Mr. Hudak is a chief executive officer at CEIT Biomedical Engineering company which is dealing with implants production using additive technologies. |