Additive manufacturing and biomimetic materials in oral and maxillofacial surgery: a topical overview

Additive manufacturing (AM) is the term used for different and complex techniques to manufacture products with complex morphology, often referred to as "custom-made". The product is made without needing to melt the material into pre-formed molds, nor to remove it from an initial mass, as happens in subtractive processes. The additive methodology gives the AM enormous potential in the widest fields of application, from aerospace to biomedical, from dental to maxillofacial. This wide range of AM technologies can be applied to different types of polymeric materials such as plastics, resins and biopolymers that are processed to obtain optimal scaffolds. The most common synthetic and biocompatible polymeric materials for the production of biocompatible scaffolds are: polylactic acid (PLA), polycaprolactone acid (PLC) and polylactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA); such materials interact effectively with cell behavior and tissue development. These materials are degradable in the physiological environment and the degradation products do not have harmful effects. In conclusion, new biomaterials are increasingly being studied as possible therapeutic remedies. Advances in tissue engineering are leading to the development of new scaffolds useful for bone regeneration and therefore potentially valid for applications in maxillofacial surgery.