https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7470-3364
Abstract
3D printing is an additive manufacturing technology, which permits innovative approaches for incorporating antibiotics into 3D printed constructs. Antibiotic-incorporating applications in medicine have included medical implants, prostheses, along with procedural and surgical instruments. 3D-printed antibiotic-impregnated devices offer the advantages of increased surface area for drug distribution, sequential layers of antibiotics produced through layer-by-layer fabrication, and the ability to rapidly fabricate constructs based on patient-specific anatomies. To date, fused deposition modeling has been the main 3D printing method used to incorporate antibiotics, although inkjet and stereolithography techniques have also been described. This review offers a state-of-the-art summary of studies that incorporate antibiotics into 3D-printed constructs and summarizes the rationale, challenges, and future directions for the potential use of this technology in patient care.
Financial & competing interests disclosure
DH Ballard receives salary support from NIH TOP-TIER grant T32-EB021955. JA Weisman and DK Mills are co-inventors on a patent application that related to methods described in this paper: ‘Methods and Devices for Three-Dimensional Printing or Additive Manufacturing of Bioactive Medical Devices’, application number US14822275. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.
No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.