In their study, they found that the scaffold was strong enough for their rabbit ACL reconstruction model.

Surgical planning and patient education is already seeing growing use of 3-D printing, and, as the time it takes to create models from the data from imaging comes down, such approaches are sure to become more commonplace.

“Today, when people print organs, it can take anywhere from a week to three weeks to manipulate the data,” Jimmie Beacham, Waukesha, Wisconsin-based chief engineer for advanced manufacturing at GE Healthcare noted recently. “We want to do it with a click of a button.”

To that end, GE researchers are now tackling the problem of developing software that can turn the enormous data files from machines like CT scanners into a printable file that can quickly produce a physical model with a 3-D printer. “We’ve already printed several organs like the liver and the lung,” he said, “It’s valuable learning.”

Such models are good for more than just patient education, as Beacham observed. “Surgeons sometimes have to repeatedly go to a workstation, look at the image on the screen and try to figure out what’s going on,” as anatomy varies between patients and can lead to rude surprises during an operation. “It slows the surgery down and increases the odds of introducing infection or slowing the patient’s recovery time.”

For example, in February, cardiologists at Children's Hospital Los Angeles reported that they used 3-D printing to make a model of a toddler's heart from CT scans. This helped them modify a stent to repair his pulmonary arteries.

In October, 2016, researchers at Northwestern University told HCB News that they were working on 3-D-printed, flexible, biodegradable vascular stents that are customized for each patient's body.

"In the future, if what we propose is commonplace, one could, in theory, combine the benefits of personalized medicine with optimal medical device function," Guillermo Ameer, professor of biomedical engineering at the university, suggested.

"The surgeon could decide which drugs to include with the stent material for slow release once implanted if necessary," he added. "They would not have to only rely on the few drugs that are available in off-the-shelf stents, which may or may not be optimal for that particular patient."

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