Using 3D Printing for Pre-planning of Orthopedic Surgeries, a Review

Background: Recent developments in 3D printing have gave orthopedic surgeons among a novel technology that has the ability to revolutionize preoperative planning. The appearance of 3D printing technology (3DPT) enables the digital preoperative plan & simulation to move from the virtual phase to the reality phase. Numerous fields of medicine are lately benefiting from the operate of 3D printing, including the arising part of 3D printing in orthopedic surgery.

Methods: We searched on PubMed and Google Scholar databases in January 2020 to find papers and studies about using 3D printing in orthopedy for aim of preplanning. The key words for search were (“3D printing” OR “3D-printed Model” OR “three-dimensional Printer”) AND (“Orthopedy” OR “Orthopedics” OR “Orthopedics”) AND (“Surgery” OR “Operation”) AND (“Pre-planning” OR “Plan”) AND (“Fracture” OR “Trauma”) that we used compound. We exclude the papers which their titles or abstracts were not relevant. At last, we select the most related papers to use in this article.

Results: The search on PubMed found 80 Papers and on Google Scholar found 104 papers. After excluding similar and unrelated papers, 44 papers were selected for this review article.

Conclusion: Almost all studies have shown us that using a 3D model can have a very positive effect on the surgical process and its outcomes, as well as patient and surgeon satisfaction. Therefore, we anticipate that this technology will be used in many orthopedic surgeries in the near future.