Desktop Health Successfully Installs 3D Printed Custom Ear Implant

Within the realm of medical 3D printing, the possibilities opened up with technologies such as 3D bioprinting have been steadily emerging from theory into practice. Some of the most recent work being done around the world includes the ability to 3D print brain tissue as well as skin and organ tissues, opening up the potential for 3D printed transplants and cancer treatment. Elsewhere in the field, the practice of 3D printed implants and prosthetics has been instrumental in assisting patients recovering from diseases and physical accidents. Most recently, one example that combines the two practices into a functional, bioprinted implant was successfully carried out in Germany with the help of bioprinting technology from Desktop Health, the medical 3D printing division of Desktop Metal.

The feat was made possible thanks to the help of the Desktop Health 3D-Bioplotter® Manufacturing Series 3D printer. The 3D bioprinter from Desktop Health has now seen active use both in the United States and Germany. The ENT Clinic at Hannover Medical School (MHH) is the first clinic in the world that has succeeded in printing and implanting a customized drug-releasing ear implant in an adult patient.

The 3D bioprinted ear implant

MHH acquired their 3D-Bioplotter from Desktop Metal 2020 with the aim of using it to develop medical implant applications such as this one. The patient at the MHH clinic who received the ear implant had suffered from a narrowing of the ear canal that kept recurring despite repeated operations. The implant works like a stent, meaning it can prevent a passage from narrowing, while it also supplies the patient with active pharmaceutical ingredients to promote healing. “The first follow-up has already been very promising” explains Dr. Verena Scheper, whose team from the Department of Inner Ear Pharmacology at the ENT Clinic at Hannover Medical School developed the implant and printed it using the 3D printer from Desktop Health.