Individual Contour Adapted Functional Implant Structures in Titanium

Abstract

Apart from applications in mechanical engineering, now even the domain of medicine may benefit from the option of using metallic materials for Direct Manufacturing. In the medical domain, the use of biocompatible materials, such as titanium or titanium alloys is essential to produce individual implants. As a result of this development, it is now possible to generate new patient-specific geometries fitted to the contour. This paper elucidates the process chain to derive individual design variants and to produce patient-specific bone replacement implants for the lower jaw-bone regions by using innovative reverse engineering and manufacturing methods. For this interdisciplinary project, technical scientists, medical scientists at the university hospital and engineers from a product development firm work together.