Studying the possibility of application of 3D printing for the manufacture of some bones of the skeleton
Aim. Share the experience of making human bone samples using 3D-printing technologies at Belgorod State University. Materials and methods. To obtain skeletal bone samples, an Objet Eden500 3D printer with PolyJet printing technology (photopolymer printing) was used. Using a 3D scan of the bone, a point cloud was created, and then, after the necessary corrections, a three-dimensional model, which was printed on a 3D printer. Results. When analyzing the quality of the obtained 3D-model of the atlas, the anterior and posterior arches of the atlas with the corresponding tubercles, lateral masses, transverse processes with foramina, and superior articular fossae are clearly visualized. However, the grooves for vertebral arteries and the fossa for dens of axis are less pronounced than in the initial material. On the superior surface of the body of the sphenoid bone, the sella turcica is clearly visible, bounded in front by the tuberculum sellae of the saddle, and behind by the dorsum sellae. The hypophyseal fossa is almost invisible. At the base of the anterior clinoid processes, the openings of the optic canals and a moderately pronounced prechiasmatic groove between them are clearly visible. On the anterior surface of the body, the sphenoidal conchae are not visualized on the sides of the sphenoidal crest. On the cerebral surface of the greater wings of the sphenoid bone, from 3 foramina, only foramen rotundum and foramen ovale are visible, and the foramen spinosum one looks like a narrow canal. Faintly traced impressions for cerebral gyri, juga cerebralia and groove for arteries. On the pterygoid process of the sphenoid bone, the lateral and medial plates look almost the same, although the lateral one should be wider and shorter, and the medial one is longer and narrower and end with a pterygoid hamulus. The resulting 3D-model of the ethmoid bone on the cribriform plate did not reproduce the holes for the olfactory nerves, as well as the ethmoid cells of the ethmoid labyrinths and the alae of crista galli. Conclusion. When analyzing the bones obtained using 3D-printing, it was found that, in general, the shape, size and anatomical structures of the bones are reproduced almost completely from the original bones. Among the difficulties, one can note the fuzzy printing of some grooves, fossae, processes and small foramina, which can be corrected at the stage of prepress.