First Success in Developing Metal Plates for Aligning Broken Bones Using 3D Printing

Seoul St. Mary's Hospital Orthopedics Professors Shin Seung-han and Jeong Yang-guk Team
New Customized Fracture Treatment Technology...Improved Surgical Convenience and Treatment Efficiency

Seoul St. Mary's Hospital Orthopedics Department Professors Seung-Han Shin (left) and Yang-Guk Jeong.

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Gwan-joo] Domestic researchers have announced the world's first technology that uses 3D printing to create metal plates perfectly fitting broken bones, enhancing treatment efficiency.

Catholic University Seoul St. Mary's Hospital announced on the 23rd that the orthopedic surgery team led by Professors Shin Seung-han (first author) and Jeong Yang-guk (corresponding author) published a study on "Image Reduction-Based Circular Customized Fracture Metal Plates."

Conventional fracture surgery involved fitting and holding together shattered bone fragments one by one and repeatedly bending and twisting several metal plates to fit the bone. This study first aligns the fractured bone using three-dimensional imaging to virtually restore its original circular shape before the break, then produces a metal plate perfectly matching this shape using 3D printing. This provides convenience to surgeons and is expected to reduce the risk of metal plate protrusion or bone misalignment, thereby improving treatment outcomes.

This technology was patented by Professors Shin Seung-han and Jeong Yang-guk in 2019 and is currently patented in the United States, China, and Japan. The paper confirmed through model bone experiments that fractures fixed with these customized metal plates restored the bone to its pre-fracture shape.

The research team fractured 28 tibial sawbones in various ways, then used CT 3D imaging to virtually restore the original shape before the break. They produced metal plates perfectly fitting this virtual shape using 3D printing technology, and after fixing the fractured model bones with these plates, confirmed that the shape matched the pre-fracture form.

Although 3D printing technology has been widely applied in customized medicine recently, fracture treatment had limitations because patients visit hospitals with already broken bones, making it impossible to know the pre-break shape. There was no original shape to customize surgical metal plates, but this method overcomes that obstacle.

Professor Shin explained, “The ideal fracture surgery uses metal plates that perfectly fit the broken bone. Circular customized metal plates are produced to fit the original shape of the broken bone without needing images of the opposite side or worrying about differences between sides. The metal plate itself acts as a guide to align bone fragments, greatly facilitating surgery. Customized metal plates will become the mainstream in fracture surgery in the future.”

The study results were published in the Journal of Personalized Medicine.

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