Desktop Health — the medical 3D printing brand of Desktop Metal — today announced that the ENT clinic at Hannover Medical School (MHH) in Germany has used its 3D-Bioplotter Manufacturer Series to produce a customized ear implant with drug release benefits for implantation in an adult patient.
The ENT clinic at MHH is the first in the world to use the Desktop Health 3D-Bioplotter to customize an ear implant for a patient's individual anatomy, print it with integrated pharmaceutical ingredients, and implant it.
Earlier this month, Chicago-based Dimension Inx announced that its CMFlex synthetic bone graft product has been surgically implanted in two cases. This product — the first 3D printed regenerative bone graft product cleared by the FDA — was developed and is manufactured on the 3D-Bioplotter Manufacturer Series.
Details about the Ear Implant
The MHH patient who received the implant suffered from recurrent narrowing of the auditory canal, which had been treated surgically several times without showing the desired success. The new implant serves a stent function, but also delivers ingredients designed to accelerate healing.
“The first follow-up has already been very promising,” said PD Dr. Verena Scheper, whose team from the Otolaryngology Clinic’s Inner Ear Pharmacology Department designed the implant and manufactured it using the 3D-Bioplotter Manufacturing Series.
The MHH ENT Clinic is internationally renowned for the world's largest cochlear implant program for the care of hearing-impaired patients. To date, the clinic has provided more than 11,111 affected persons with a cochlear implant. Other areas of focus include the provision of hearing aids and their further development, the early detection of childhood hearing loss, and the diagnosis and treatment of sensorineural hearing loss, including tinnitus. The treatment of patients is based on the close cooperation between the ENT clinic, the German Hearing Center Hannover (DHZ), acousticians, product manufacturers and scientists up to the development of new medical products.
