3D Printing for Surgical Simulation and Training: Innovative Materials and Approaches

About this Research Topic

Background

The past few years saw a massive increase in the spreading of Additive Manufacturing technologies - mostly known as 3D printing - in many industrial contexts. The medical field knew a major growth in the use of 3D printing, as witnessed by the exponential increase in publications on the topic in the last 5 years. The medical context represents the perfect application of 3D printing, being characterized by few copies of highly personalized products, accounting for a lot of different possible applications: prostheses, orthoses, models for surgical planning, education, and patients counseling.

The technological advances of current 3D printers enable the production of 3D printed models with a high degree of realism from the morphological point of view, while there are still limits in their ability to mimic the mechanical behavior of biological tissues, especially the softest ones, as the vasculature or parenchymal organs.

The study of the mechanical behavior of 3D printed materials and the investigation of innovative material formulations and manufacturing approaches is a crucial step to make 3D printing capable of producing realistic anatomical models as well as medical devices. The chance of replicating the behavior of a living tissue under certain conditions would pave the way to an effective employment for surgical simulation and training on patient-specific models, moving a step forward to the use of cadaveric or animal models, which commonly don't express the features of the clinical case of interest.

To broaden the knowledge on the topic, authors are invited to submit their findings in the use of 3D printing technologies and materials to improve surgical simulation, training activities, and medical device manufacturing.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

- use of 3D printing commercial/experimental materials and approaches to simulate biological tissues;
- numerical simulation or experimental characterization of 3D printing materials aimed at mimicking biological tissues;
- clinical experiences involving the use of 3D printed models/simulators;
- constitutive modelling of additively manufactured materials and process simulation for biomedical components.

The following types of manuscripts will be accepted:
Original Research, Clinical Trial, Case Report, Community Case Study, Conceptual Analysis, Empirical Study.

Keywords: 3D printing, additive manufacturing, surgical simulation, patient-specific model, anatomical model, anatomical prototyping, medical device

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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