Development of a 3D printed patient-specific neonatal brain simulation model using multimodality imaging for perioperative management

(Bio)printing in Personalized Medicine—Opportunities and Potential Benefits

The global development of technologies now enters areas related to human health, with a transition from conventional to personalized medicine that is based to a significant extent on (bio)printing. The goal of this article is to review some of the published scientific literature and to highlight the importance and potential benefits of using 3D (bio)printing techniques in contemporary personalized medicine and also to offer future perspectives in this research field. The article is prepared according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar, and ScienceDirect databases were used in the literature search. Six authors independently performed the search, study selection, and data extraction. This review focuses on 3D bio(printing) in personalized medicine and provides a classification of 3D bio(printing) benefits in several categories: overcoming the shortage of organs for transplantation, elimination of problems due to the difference between sexes in organ transplantation, reducing the cases of rejection of transplanted organs, enhancing the survival of patients with transplantation, drug research and development, elimination of genetic/congenital defects in tissues and organs, and surgery planning and medical training for young doctors. In particular, we highlight the benefits of each 3D bio(printing) applications included along with the associated scientific reports from recent literature. In addition, we present an overview of some of the challenges that need to be overcome in the applications of 3D bioprinting in personalized medicine. The reviewed articles lead to the conclusion that bioprinting may be adopted as a revolution in the development of personalized, medicine and it has a huge potential in the near future to become a gold standard in future healthcare in the world.

3D Printing of Physical Organ Models: Recent Developments and Challenges

Physical organ models are the objects that replicate the patient-specific anatomy and have played important roles in modern medical diagnosis and disease treatment. 3D printing, as a powerful multi-function manufacturing technology, breaks the limitations of traditional methods and provides a great potential for manufacturing organ models. However, the clinical application of organ model is still in small scale, facing the challenges including high cost, poor mimicking performance and insufficient accuracy. In this review, the mainstream 3D printing technologies are introduced, and the existing manufacturing methods are divided into "directly printing" and "indirectly printing", with an emphasis on choosing suitable techniques and materials. This review also summarizes the ideas to address these challenges and focuses on three points: 1) what are the characteristics and requirements of organ models in different application scenarios, 2) how to choose the suitable 3D printing methods and materials according to different application categories, and 3) how to reduce the cost of organ models and make the process simple and convenient. Moreover, the state-of-the-art in organ models are summarized and the contribution of 3D printed organ models to various surgical procedures is highlighted. Finally, current limitations, evaluation criteria and future perspectives for this emerging area are discussed.