Today's KNOWLEDGE Share : 3D printing in medical applications

 Today's KNOWLEDGE Share

🧠 Can we already 3D print human bone – and can it ever match the real thing?

3D printing has opened incredible doors in medicine:

🖨️ Custom implants,

🧬 Patient-specific guides,

🧫 Even bioprinted tissues.

And now we ask: Can we 3D print bone?

The idea sounds magical design a defect-specific structure, print it, implant it, and let it heal.

But as exciting as it is, we need to ask:

👉 Can a printed bone truly replace what biology has perfected over millions of years?

The answer isn’t simple — because real bone isn’t just a shape.

It’s a living, dynamic tissue made of:

• Haversian canals

• Cortical and trabecular architecture

• Biomechanical gradients

🦴 Natural bone is never just a block of material.

3D printing brings us closer in terms of geometry — but structure, remodeling, and biological function remain major challenges.

💬 Here’s the issue:

How do we make printed bone as hard, elastic, and biologically responsive as real bone?

What “glue” holds the printed structure together — and how do we replicate true integration?

They may look similar — but printed models lack the internal complexity and adaptability of living bone.

💡 That’s why biological implants like the Surgebright are so exciting:

🦈 Made from 100% human cortical bone,

🧬 Fully remodelable, revascularizable, and naturally integrated.

📉 No metal, no removal surgeries, no compromise in healing.

Shark Screw® doesn’t try to imitate bone — It is bone.

With over 8,000 successful cases and growing international use, it shows what’s possible when we work with biology, not against it.

So what do you think?

➡️ Will 3D printing ever catch up?

Or are allografts and natural scaffolds already the better way forward in many cases?

👇 Let’s discuss.

source : Thomas Pastl