3D printers help deliver customised drugs

Adding to the growing use of 3-D printers, researchers have now utilised the technology to develop personalised medical devices that can deliver antibiotics and chemotherapy in targeted manner.

"The 3-D printing allows for tailor-made materials for personalised medicine," said lead researcher Horacio D'Agostino from Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center (LSUH) in Shreveport.

"It gives us the ability to construct devices that meet individual patient's needs, from their unique anatomy to specific medicine requirements. And as tools in interventional radiology, these devices are part of treatment options that are less invasive than traditional surgery," he added.

Using 3-D printing technology, the researchers developed bioactive filaments, chemotherapy beads, catheters and stents containing antibiotics or chemotherapeutic agents.

The team then tested these devices in cell cultures to see if they could inhibit growth of bacteria and cancer cells. When testing antibiotic-containing catheters that could slowly release the drug, D'Agostino's team found that the devices inhibited bacterial growth.

Researchers also saw that filaments carrying chemotherapeutic agents were able to inhibit the growth of cancer cells.

The findings were presented at the ongoing 40th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Society of Interventional Radiology at Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta.