3D-printed cellular structures for bone biomimetic implants

The use of porous cellular structures in bone tissue engineering can provide mechanical and biological environments closer to the host bone. However, poor internal architectural designs may lead to catastrophic failure. In this work, 192 open-porous cellular structures were fabricated using 3D printing (3DP) techniques. The mechanical and biological behavior of four 3D internal structures (octahedral, pillar octahedral, cubic and truncated octahedral) was investigated. It was found that the pillar octahedral shape has not only greater stiffness and strength under compression, shear and torsion but increased rate of pre-osteoblastic cell proliferation. We believe bone implants can be fabricated using 3DP techniques and their mechanical and biological performance can be tailored by modifying the internal architectures.