3D printed heart model produced on the new J750 Digital Anatomy 3D Printer
Stratasys has announced the launch of a new medical-focused 3D printer and materials designed to replicate the feel and biomechanics of the human body.
The J750 Digital Anatomy 3D Printer, based on the full-colour, multi-material J750 Polyjet series, will allow medical professionals to produce accurate, responsive models that improve surgical planning and training, and could help bring new healthcare devices to market faster.
“We believe in the potential of 3D printing to provide better health care, and the Digital Anatomy 3D Printer is a major step forward,” said Stratasys Healthcare Business Unit Head Eyal Miller. “We’re giving surgeons a more realistic training environment in no-risk settings. We also anticipate this will enable medical device makers to improve how they bring products to market by performing design verification, validation, usability studies and failure analysis with these new models.”
The additive manufacturing leader is also introducing three new materials TissueMatrix, GelMatrix, and BoneMatrix for cardiac, vascular, and orthopaedic 3D printing applications, and a Blood Vessel Cleaning Station that removes support material from inside 3D printed blood vessels.
Stratasys says the printer has already been tested at organisations such as the Jacobs Institute medical centre to re-create key vascular components for advanced testing and training.
“3D printing has been wonderful for recreating patient-specific anatomy compared to cadavers or animal models; however, the final frontier for organ model realism has been live-tissue feel and biomechanical realism,” said Dr. Adnan Siddiqui, Chief Medical Officer, Jacobs Institute. “That’s exactly what the Digital Anatomy 3D Printer gives us. We believe these models give us the best opportunity to recreate human physiological conditions to simulate actual clinical situations and to study new devices to establish their effectiveness before introducing them to patients.”
Stratasys believes the new system will primarily be adopted by medical device companies requiring new ways to drive faster adoption of technologies and procedures, and for training at academic medical centres.
