Table 2.

Application fields of 3D-printed biometals in medical devices.

Application field	Objectives	Benefits
General-purpose complex implants	Provide complex-structure implants for general purposes including hip, knee, shoulder, oral implants, and so on.	Metal implants with complex 3D internal structures can be produced by 3D printing technology with high speed and high precision.
Personalized permanent implants	Solve the problem brought by the mismatch between general-purpose implants and patients with individual differences such as poor adaptability, intraoperative incomplete coverage, implant wear and loosening, and so on.	3D printed metal implants can be custom designed and fabricated into specific structure to meet the individual requirements of different patients, and thus become a personalized treatment.
Porous implant prosthesis	Circumvent the stress shielding effect brought by the dense metal implants due to the mismatch of stiffness and elastic modulus between them and human bone tissue	3D printing technology is significantly superior to traditional machining methods in constructing porous metal implants
Personalized surgical tools	Reduce the long processing cycle for traditionally personalized surgical tools	Personalized surgical tools fabricated by 3D printing technology enable more precise procedures, simplify the operation, and increase the operational speed and efficiency.
In vitro medical devices	Provide in vitro medical models and devices such as prosthesis, hearing aids, dental surgery template models, and so on.	With 3D printing technology, simulation models of human tissues and bones can be printed out in advance, which allows surgeons to practice the operation procedures, thus enabling more accurate and safer actual surgical operations.