Laser Additive Manufacturing (LAM) is an additive manufacturing technology that uses laser as an energy source. Using the forming principle of "stacking" point by point or layer by layer by discrete means, the product parts can be quickly "printed" according to the three-dimensional CAD model of the product. Generally, there are two processes used for metal additive manufacturing, including laser direct deposition LDMD and laser selective melting SLM.
Laser additive manufacturing has been widely used in the biomedical field due to its advantages of patient-specific design, high complexity, high productivity, and high cost-effectiveness. Major applications of additive manufacturing in bio-medicine include tissue engineering models, anatomical models, pharmacological design, and biomedical instrumentation. Compared with traditional medical device manufacturing technology, laser additive manufacturing technology is a new medical device manufacturing technology with development prospects. Customized medical devices and surgical guides can be manufactured efficiently and accurately using laser additive manufacturing technology based on clinical images of patients. In addition, laser additive manufacturing is compatible with a variety of biocompatible materials, such as zinc alloys, cobalt-chromium alloys, titanium alloys, etc., and is widely used in implants and cirrhotics/prosthesis manufacturing.
At present, the typical application of laser additive technology in the medical industry is to use 3D printers to help dental offices and denture processing quickly achieve efficient and low-cost digital dental production.
Application in dental restoration
Traditional denture processing mainly relies on the personal skills and experience of dental technicians. It is a labor-intensive job that relies heavily on the experience of technicians. The process is complicated, the production efficiency is low, and dental molds are often reworked. After using 3D printing technology, the dental model can be printed directly through the 3D printer. The dental products produced based on the dental model have small errors and fit well, which reduces the problem of poor occlusion of manually polished products and the need for multiple reworks, and avoids all kinds of waste caused by rework.
The use of 3D printers can help dental technicians achieve efficient digital small-batch production. Doctors can design and produce their own dental products, such as dentures, which are convenient and efficient. The oral data of patients can be accurately obtained through the oral scanner, and then transmitted to the denture processing office for data analysis in real-time through the existing equipment of the clinic. The denture processing office will feed back the data to the clinic through analysis and software design and typesetting, and the doctor can import the files into the 3D printer to produce the corresponding dental products. Patients can get some dental products customized according to the oral characteristics of patients in 1-2 hours per visit and use them on the spot.
Application in dental implants
In the previous dental implant process, the doctor would first open the gums, drive a "threaded nail" on the alveolar bone to fix the dentures, and then cut the gums and install the dentures on the "threaded nail." The whole process relied on the dentist.
It requires experience and judgment, and it lasts for a long time, causing great trauma to the patient. After using 3D printing technology, the doctor will first scan the patient's oral cavity, then design an implant surgery guide that can fit the patient's dental implant site, and use digital software to measure the bone density, alveolar bone, and other conditions of the patient's gums in detail, and design the best implant point, which greatly improves the safety of the operation, makes the operation more precise, and reduces the difficulty of dental implant surgery.
In addition to dentistry, laser additive technology has been applied and popularized in more and more fields.
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