Research On Key Technology Of 3D Printed Bio-Material Auricular Scaffolds

Auricular deformity is a commonly seen illness in clinic. Autologous tissue transplanting surgery is the most frequently used treatment for this disease. This surgery has the following disadvantages: complications may occur; accuracy of scaffold is not guaranteed; technique demanding to the surgeons. This paper proposed to replace the current cartilage scaffold with silicone scaffold, which would eliminate patients’ pain in the remove of cartilage as well as complications. CT, reversed modeling and 3D printing technology were discovered and studied to rapidly build the respective auricular mold for individual patient, and medical silicon was used to fill the cavity and then cured to form the scaffold, after which the scaffold was transplanted into animal body to test its bio-compatibility. Based on the above purposes, following specific contents were to studied:1) Raise the basic procedures and method of building bio- material auricular scaffolds. Analyze the advantages of this novel method over currently using surgery method.2) Obtain patient’s original slice data by CT scanning, and build the digital model of auricle by reversed modeling. Post-process according to the characters of 3D printing need be done to the model before it is printed.3) Based on the transplantation process, the model should be identically thinned from both sides. Obtain the auricular scaffolds by thinning the original model with different offset value, and analyze the thickness of different regions on the scaffolds as well as the accuracy during the thinning process.4) Design molds for scaffolds with d ifferent offset value, optimize the molds based on features of 3D printing, manufacture the molds and do accuracy examinations.5) Fill the molds with medical silicon under appropriate conditions and cure the silicon to form the silicon scaffolds. Implement hardness test and transplanting simulation to scaffolds with different offset value to achieve the scaffold best suitable for transplantation.6) Transplant the optimized scaffold into animal body and test its rigidity and intensity, continue observe the anima l’s healthy status to exam the bio-compatibility of the silicon scaffold.