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Safer 3D-printed personalised orthopaedic implants

Editor:

Peter Vee Sin Lee: University of Melbourne, Australia

Submission Status: Open   |   Submission Deadline: 30 April 2024


Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Research is calling for submissions to our collection on Safer 3D-printed personalised orthopaedic implants. Advances in computer-aided engineering, patient-specific computer models, and additive manufacturing or 3D-Printing have transformed patients' treatment through personalised solutions. This collection of articles in the Journal of Orthopaedic Research and Surgery aims to address the three highlighted challenges in safer 3D-printed personalised orthopaedic implants. The call is open to scientific papers addressing optimal implant performance and longevity that can be tailored to individual patients and screening out devices with unacceptable safety risks to the patient.

Image: 3D-printed plate design for pelvic acetabular fractures (Credit: Dale Robinson)

About the collection

Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Research is calling for submissions to our collection on Safer 3D-printed personalised orthopaedic implants. Advances in computer-aided engineering, patient-specific computer models, and additive manufacturing or 3D-Printing have transformed patients' treatment through personalised solutions. Manufacturers and hospitals regularly provide patients with custom 3D-printed orthopaedics and maxillofacial implants. However, there are significant challenges to facilitating personalised medical implant commercialisation and widespread use. Firstly, regulatory frameworks for personalised implants are in their early stages. Current standards for testing off-the-shelf devices are not directly transferrable to devices designed for individual patients. Instead, future test standards could be based on patient anatomy, physiological loadings, tissue properties and even lifestyle information. Secondly, no well-defined framework or methodology supports using and increasing personalised implants' success rate. The fabrication of the implant is only the first step. Successful implantation and treatment require a comprehensive approach, including optimising individual patient pre-operative planning and surgical instruments. Thirdly, there is a significant barrier to manufacture at scale. The additive manufacturing industry for personalised medical implants is fragmented and in the early stages of adopting personalised technologies such as pre-clinical testing, virtual surgery and virtual clinical trials.

This collection of articles in the Journal of Orthopaedic Research and Surgery aims to address the three highlighted challenges in safer 3D-printed personalised orthopaedic implants. The call is open to scientific papers addressing optimal implant performance and longevity that can be tailored to individual patients and screening out devices with unacceptable safety risks to the patient. Suggestions could include,

• Clinical investigation 

• Bone-implant interface

• Technologies for the design and development of implants

• Technologies for optimising implants materials, topology, and manufacturing

• Biomechanical investigation, including virtual clinical trials

  1. Custom-made implants are a valid option in revision total hip arthroplasty to address massive acetabular bone loss. The aim of this study was to assess the accuracy of custom-made acetabular implants between p...

    Authors: Matteo Romagnoli, Marco Zaffagnini, Eleonora Carillo, Federico Raggi, Marco Casali, Alberto Leardini, Giulio Maria Marcheggiani Muccioli, Alberto Grassi and Stefano Zaffagnini
    Citation: Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Research 2023 18:742
  2. This study was aimed to use a digital design of 3D-printing technology to create a surgical navigation template. At the same time, biphasic calcium phosphate (BCP) was applied to treat osteonecrosis of the fem...

    Authors: Zhian Chen, Fanzhe Feng, Xixiong Su, Yongqing Xu, Ying Zhang and Hongbo Tan
    Citation: Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Research 2023 18:693
  3. This study reports our experience in the treatment of aggressive pelvic GCT through wide resection assisted with patient-specific bone-cutting guides (PSBCGs) and subsequent reconstruction with 3D-printed pers...

    Authors: Zhuangzhuang Li, Minxun Lu, Li Min, Yi Luo and Chongqi Tu
    Citation: Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Research 2023 18:648
  4. Nerve compression symptoms and spinal instability, resulting from spinal metastases, significantly impact the quality of life for patients. A 3D-printed vertebral body is considered an effective approach to re...

    Authors: Yun Cao, Nan Yang, Shengbao Wang, Cong Wang, Qiang He, Qinfan Wu and Yangyang Zheng
    Citation: Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Research 2023 18:638
  5. Osteonecrosis of the femoral head (ONFH) is a prevalent orthopedic condition characterized by the disruption of blood supply to the femoral head, leading to ischemia of internal tissues, subchondral bone fract...

    Authors: Yiyang Li, Jiewen Zhang, Yiwei Zhao, Run Tian and Pei Yang
    Citation: Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Research 2023 18:564
  6. Large malignant bone tumors and revision limb salvage procedures often result in massive bone loss, leaving a short residual bone segment that cannot accommodate a standard stem for endoprosthesis fixation. Th...

    Authors: Zhuangzhuang Li, Minxun Lu, Yuqi Zhang, Taojun Gong, Li Min, Yong Zhou, Yi Luo and Chongqi Tu
    Citation: Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Research 2023 18:468

Submission Guidelines

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This Collection welcomes submission of Research Articles, Data Notes, Case Reports, Study Protocols, and Database Articles. Before submitting your manuscript, please ensure you have read our submission guidelines. Articles for this Collection should be submitted via our submission system, Snapp. During the submission process you will be asked whether you are submitting to a Collection, please select "Safer 3D-printed personalised orthopaedic implants" from the dropdown menu.

Articles will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process and are subject to all of the journal’s standard policies. Articles will be added to the collection as they are published.

The Editor has no competing interests with the submissions which he will handle through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Editor has competing interests is handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.