Table 3, [Subspecialty Applications of 3-DP in Neurosurgery]. - CADTH Issues in Emerging Health Technologies

Subspecialty	Application	Example
Cerebrovascular ⁷⁵	Surgical planning and modelling	Cerebral aneurysm surgery
Neuro-oncology ⁷⁵	Surgical planning and modelling	Visualization of the relationship between skull, tissue, and tumour for resection — including incorporating information from fMRI
Neurosurgical devices	Proton range compensator — creates a conformal dose distribution to protect tissues surrounding the tumour
Functional ⁷⁵	Surgical planning and modelling	Placement of intracranial electrodes for treatment-resistant epilepsy
Neurosurgical devices	Patient-specific head casts to reduce movement when monitoring brain activity
Spinal⁷⁵^,⁷⁶	Neurosurgical devices⁷⁵^,⁷⁶	Patient-specific screw guides for optimizing the trajectory of pedicle screws used for spinal fixation
Custom implants	Used in complex cases (e.g., for congenital malformations or the replacement of whole vertebrae), where an individualized approach is important for the prognosis
Mass-produced implants⁷⁶	Devices with improved geometry and control of porosity and roughness for better osteointegration
Biological implants⁷⁵	Early research into implants to replace intervertebral disks instead of spinal fusion
Surgical planning and modelling⁷⁶	Used to provide a more complete understanding of the pathology and to simulate the procedures

Subspecialty

Application

Example

Cerebrovascular ⁷⁵

Surgical planning and modelling

Cerebral aneurysm surgery

Neuro-oncology ⁷⁵

Surgical planning and modelling

Visualization of the relationship between skull, tissue, and tumour for resection — including incorporating information from fMRI

Neurosurgical devices

Proton range compensator — creates a conformal dose distribution to protect tissues surrounding the tumour

Functional ⁷⁵

Surgical planning and modelling

Placement of intracranial electrodes for treatment-resistant epilepsy

Neurosurgical devices

Patient-specific head casts to reduce movement when monitoring brain activity

Spinal⁷⁵^,⁷⁶

Neurosurgical devices⁷⁵^,⁷⁶

Patient-specific screw guides for optimizing the trajectory of pedicle screws used for spinal fixation

Custom implants

Used in complex cases (e.g., for congenital malformations or the replacement of whole vertebrae), where an individualized approach is important for the prognosis

Mass-produced implants⁷⁶

Devices with improved geometry and control of porosity and roughness for better osteointegration

Biological implants⁷⁵

Early research into implants to replace intervertebral disks instead of spinal fusion

Surgical planning and modelling⁷⁶

Used to provide a more complete understanding of the pathology and to simulate the procedures

From: 175, An Overview of Clinical Applications of 3-D Printing and Bioprinting

CADTH Issues in Emerging Health Technologies.

Ottawa (ON): Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health; 2016-2021.

Except where otherwise noted, this work is distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-ND), a copy of which is available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

NCBI Bookshelf. A service of the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health.