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Updated: Oct 6, 2025
3D Planning and Printing of Patient Specific Implants for Reconstruction of Bony Defects
Published on: August 4, 2020
Biomechanical Analysis and Design Method for Patient-Specific Reconstructive Implants for Large Bone Defects of the
Po-Kuei Wu1,2, Cheng-Wei Lee3, Wei-Hsiang Sun3
1Department of Orthopaedics, Therapeutical and Research Center of Musculoskeletal Tumor, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei 112, Taiwan.
Abstract:
This study aims to develop a generalizable method for designing a patient-specific reconstructive scaffold implant for a large distal lateral femur defect using finite element (FE) analysis and topology optimization. A 3D solid-core implant for the distal femur defect was designed to withhold the femur load. Data from FE analysis of the solid implant were use for topology optimization to obtain a 'bone scaffold implant' with light-weight internal cavity and surface lattice features to allow for filling with bone material. The bone scaffold implant weighed 69.6% less than the original solid-core implant. The results of FE simulation show that the bone repaired with the bone scaffold implant had lower total displacement (12%), bone plate von Mises stress (34%), bone maximum first principal stress (33%), and bone maximum first principal strain (32%) than did bone repaired with bone cement. The trend in experimental strain with increasing load on the composite femur was greater with bone cement than with the bone scaffold implant. This study presents a generalizable method for designing a patient-specific reconstructive scaffold implant for the distal lateral femur defect that has sufficient strength and space for filling with allograft bone.
