Medical applications of 3D printing

3D printing is an additive manufacturing method that can build objects directly from a computational model. Unlike traditional manufacturing methods such as milling and molding, 3D printing can construct models of arbitrary complexity in relatively fast time frames. It is a powerful tool for visualizing complex human or animal anatomies and can be used for surgical planning, physician and patient education, medical procedure training, medical device prototyping, and personalized medical device manufacturing. 3D printing technology is rapidly evolving with advances in materials, resolution, and speed thus enabling greater realism and higher accuracy; this in turn enables new medical applications. The objective of this chapter is to provide the reader with a background in what 3D printing could do for you, a brief description of how the majority of current 3D printers work, and how printing has been (and could be) used in various medical applications.