PDR's Surgical & Prosthetic Design team are growing their collaborations with partners in India, expanding research and education in the field of custom medical device design. A workshop hosted by Osmania University in Hyderabad, India will review barriers to scaling up custom medical device design and additive manufacture.
Fig 1: Custom titanium implants produced using additive manufacture
The provision of patient specific medical devices in India is currently limited. Production methods require highly skilled specialists to hand make each piece which limits availability by both proximity to a specialist centre and high manufacturing costs. 3D digital design and additive manufacturing tools offer the potential to reduce the cost of fabrication as well as improve accessibility to patient specific devices. There are, however, significant technical, financial and education barriers that prevent the benefits of technologies from scaling.
Further research and education are essential to ensure these methods are developed in a locally appropriate way.
Fig 2: Metal additive manufacture is expensive and, despite advances in recent years, requires careful design and parameter consideration to be reliable.
This collaboration builds on a finding from a previous project undertaken between King Georges Medical University, Lucknow and Cardiff Metropolitan University together with NHS Wales and industry collaborators. See www.comeddi.com. It resulted in publications and spin-off research projects that identified the need for further development of the design and healthcare ecosystem.
Furthermore, it builds on the ambitions of www.spd-academy.com, which is focussed on developing internationally leading educational material that supports effective integration of design and additive manufacturing into healthcare.
Design has an important role to play in supporting social, economic and cultural development. This new collaboration represents a perfect opportunity to support integrated expertise development between researchers, industry partners, social enterprises and others in India and the UK.
The multi-day workshop will explore barriers and opportunities in the field, prioritise areas for research and develop a collaborative education programme that supports skills development.