Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the November/December 2025 print edition of Today's Medical Developments under the headline “Smart additive manufacturing: The key to better, safer medical implants”.
Medical implants have come a long way in recent years, driven by growing demand for personalized medicine and improved patient wellbeing. In this context, metal additive manufacturing (AM) has emerged as an essential tool in the design and production of high-performance osseointegrative implants.
The personalized medicine market was worth $529.28 billion in 2023 and is projected to expand by more than 8% yearly between 2024 and 2030. The growing demand for customized biomedical implants is part and parcel of this trend. Personalization goes hand in hand with innovation, propelled by the need to develop more durable and safer implants improving patient well-being.
The EU-funded NOMAD project is a case in point. This collaborative research, involving scientists and dental specialists from 10 organizations in seven European countries, aims to prevent peri-implant diseases caused by dental implants. More than four in 10 patients develop infections that may require implant replacement or, worse, cause bone loss. The NOMAD project tackles this risk by focusing on biomaterial innovations promoting tissue integration and preventing or controlling biofilm formation.
The increased use of porous metals such as titanium has been a promising area of innovation projects such as NOMAD aim to develop further. Porosity enables bone in-growth while facilitating the delivery of targeted drugs. This is an area where metal AM plays a prominent role – from prototyping to the production line.
Unlocking innovation in biomedical engineering
The integration between open CAD systems and AM has been a catalyst for innovation in biomedical design. Rapid prototyping accelerates the development of novel designs and features while enabling customized healthcare by printing multiple patient-specific implants in one build.
AM allows engineering to design complex geometries using advanced materials such as cobalt chrome and titanium. AM also enables the production of complex features such as porous lattice structures, which can reduce weight and add functionality to dental frameworks, joint replacement, or spinal implants.
Maximizing repeatability
AM’s limitless design opportunities can help propel innovation in biomedical engineering. However, ensuring these processes are repeatable can be challenging.
Medical implants must meet the highest safety and quality standards determined by organizations such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (MEA). When producing biomedical parts with AM, ensuring maximum accuracy, repeatability, and traceability is paramount. This is where the latest AM technology can help.
Technologies such as high-volume cascading gas systems ensure uniform processing conditions in the build chambers while removing process emissions from the laser path. In addition, an intercooler provides active thermal control, enabling a stable atmosphere and uniform build environment leading to more consistent metallurgy.
Lasers are another significant factor when it comes to precision and repeatability. Unlike separate mountings found on multi-laser AM systems, Renishaw’s monolithic water-cooled galvanometer mounting ensures precise laser control thanks to tight alignment of the optics and internal conformal cooling channels. For example, a single optical module coupled with multiple laser sources ensures complete scan field alignment and increased utilization across the build plane. In addition, optical encoders help maximize positional sensing accuracy, while a kinematic recoater mounting ensures rapid and repeatable positioning of the powder-spreading blade. These features optimize repeatability for solid and lattice geometry manufacture in biomedical applications.
In-process monitoring for advanced traceability
A traceable AM production process is critical to meeting the safety standards with which medical implants must comply. Systems such as the Renishaw InfiniAM camera in the build chamber automatically photograph each layer and stack these images for comparison and analysis. This way, engineers can immediately identify deviances in the powder dosage that may lead to defects.
Optical systems such as LaserVIEW and MeltVIEW are another essential monitoring tool. These systems monitor the output laser intensity and optical emissions from the AM process across the near-infrared spectrum. This data can be visualized, compared, and processed in near real time, enabling high-resolution analysis of each component’s weld quality.
With manufacturing data platforms operators can monitor, record, and analyze data gathered by sensors and metrology instruments. Engineers can monitor in-progress atmosphere, powder, and temperature data from the machine, or run historic build analysis through a web interface or mobile app. Access to this rich data is essential to ensure traceability throughout the production process.
The future of medical implants
As the trend toward personalized medicine continues, demand for more customized biomedical implants will grow in years to come. Faced with an aging population, countries across the U.S. and Europe will invest in research and development leading to better, safer, and more functional implants maximizing patient wellbeing. AM is critical to achieving this goal. The latest metrology and monitoring technology will help ensure AM processes remain repeatable and traceable over time.
Renishaw
https://www.renishaw.com
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