3D printing in the veterinary sector

How Veterinary Medicine Benefits from Additive Manufacturing

It’s no secret that additive manufacturing has been shown to have benefits in several industries, including veterinary medicine. Now, however, there are not only veterinarians who take care of the well-being of our animals with the use of 3D printing, but also commercial companies are diligently developing new applications so that they too are able to help animals. But what are the limitations and possibilities of 3D printing in this area and what is the typical process and implementation?

The Use of Additive Manufacturing by Veterinarians

No pet owner is happy to take their animal friend to the nearest veterinary office. In addition to the nasty health surprises, however, there are often other horror stories, such as the enormous costs, the long waiting times for prostheses or orthoses (among other necessary treatments) or simply the fact that it is not possible to customize veterinary products for your pet. Thankfully, many of these problems can be solved with 3D printing. In addition, innovations in material development have enabled the development of even more materials that meet the various needs of the industry. Therefore, the materials allow for many benefits such as cost reduction, reduced waiting time, and also a high degree of customization. However, innovative approaches can also model and simplify the individual steps an animal patient goes through when visiting a veterinarian using additive manufacturing. As a rule, materials such as PEEK, PEKK and, for surgical tasks, dental plastics such as nylon, PLA and PVA, for example, find their application among veterinarians who use AM.

Concrete applications in veterinary medicine

To gain a deeper understanding of how additive manufacturing is used in veterinary medicine, you first need to understand traditional methods. For example, many of the conventional methods used by veterinarians for treatment are similar to those used in human medicine, sometimes down to the smallest detail. That said, despite the partially identical DNA and other physical characteristics as well, we must remember that some treatment options simply are not possible. Often the first step before an operation or prosthesis can be performed is the scan. Since some animals don’t fit into a standard veterinary CT scanner due to their condition and other issues (particularly related to being able to sit still), the first challenges already occur here, and this is where we can see the benefits of switching to 3D technologies.

Sedation, i.e. the administration of tranquilizers to calm the functions of the central nervous system, could be used, but this is also associated with high costs and time-consuming. With 3D scanning, not only can the scan be done quickly, which in turn does not require sedation, but it can also be done with a high degree of accuracy. Since it is a portable device, you can scan any type of animal without any problems, unlike conventional CT scanning machines: at the latest with dangerous animals such as an alligator or animals living in water, classic CT scans would have already failed.

Applications can be customized thanks to AM

Veterinarians and animal hospitals can achieve a wide range of active benefits with the use of additive manufacturing when it comes to treating animals. To name a few, it can be used for the production of prosthetics, orthoses, implants, dental parts, or even custom models suitable for pre-surgical purposes. The benefits are obvious, considering that due to the different biological conditions and the needs of different animal species, the amount of factors to be considered increases dramatically. The anatomy of an animal species such as a dog, for example, differs enormously from breed to breed: if you compare an adult Newfoundland with a dachshund, it is more than obvious that individualization of treatment is more than necessary.

3D printed orthoses and prosthetics, which last up to five years in 3D printed form before needing to be replaced, are finding particularly high use within veterinary medicine. The splints, which are attached to the body, serve as an orthopedic aid so that joints, bones, or even muscles can be relieved, stabilized, or fixed.

But that’s not all. In the course of their work, a team of researchers addressed the question of the benefits of additive manufacturing in the field of veterinary orthodontics. Using the example of a 15-month-old Labrador dog that lost a tooth important to food intake during play, they demonstrated what was possible using additive manufacturing. Since this tooth would not grow back, but was also critical to preventing malnutrition, a customized solution was needed. The same tooth that still existed in the young dog’s jaw was scanned so that this scan could be produced as an implant using metal 3D printing. One of the reasons why additive manufacturing was chosen in this case is that, on the one hand, an exact scan can be performed and, on the other hand, the print must be very precise, as the newly made tooth must be perfectly integrated into the existing dental crack. After a regeneration phase, the additively produced tooth was even harder and more resistant than its natural teeth.

Additive manufacturing in veterinary medicine is also suitable for the creation of surgical and anatomical models. In this case, surgical models especially help veterinarians to achieve better surgical results, which at the same time can significantly reduce surgical time.

Specifically, these are 3D printed models that contain exact cut planes and holes of the respective animal patient, allowing surgeons to practice on these models in advance. This is suitable not only for difficult and little-known operations, but also for orthopedic injuries such as cruciate ligament ruptures or even congenital limb problems. Anatomical models, which can be differentiated into acupuncture, organ, skeleton or even exercise models, also offer great help to veterinarians. However, these three-dimensional models are not only an advantage for veterinarians, but also for students and future veterinarians and consequently serve for learning and research purposes.

When additive manufacturing is applied in veterinary medicine, it mainly benefits dogs, cats, but also chickens or cows. Meanwhile, this is more complicated with small animals such as chihuahuas, frogs, or hamsters. The reason for this is the tiny anatomy they have, which makes creating incision guides and implants considerably more challenging than for large animals.

However, arguably the biggest challenge when it comes to implementing AM into your workflow is learning the topic itself; the importance of having adequate software, as well as the biomaterials available for 3D printing in particular.

Companies Use Additive Manufacturing to Help Animals

While there are already a number of veterinarians taking advantage of additive manufacturing, companies have also found great potential in this area. The main difference that exists between the activities of veterinarians and companies with regard to AM in this case is mainly the educational background.

While the people who work in these companies mostly hold engineering degrees, veterinarians obviously have degrees in veterinary medicine.

While companies manufacture and sell these products and have therefore developed a marketplace for themselves to offer their services and product performance. In contrast, veterinarians tap into AM to work more efficiently, to improve their workflow, and to use AM as part of a whole. However, despite the different educational path, the goals are the same: to save or simplify the lives of animals with additive manufacturing.

When it comes to the process, technologies, and materials used in the process, the first step is 3D scanning, which can also be done with a smartphone thanks to scanning apps.

Once the scan has been made, either at the company’s premises or at the veterinarian’s, the software is used to develop the digital image of, for example, a prosthesis or orthosis. This can, after 3D printing and post-processing, be worn directly. When using FDM/FFF technology, many types of thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) plastics with different thicknesses, polypropylene (PP), polythene terephthalate (PET), and others, can be used.

Some examples of Veterinary applications