3D-Printing Advances in Radiotherapy

Abstract

As radiotherapy techniques have been becoming more applied in medicine, the success of radiotherapy treatment lies in an optimal radiation dosage distribution in tumor as well as dose limitation to the normal tissues. Accordingly, the application of three-dimensional (3D) printing technology, as an additive manufacturing (AM) process in radiotherapy technique, is proliferating rapidly due to the reduced manufacturing costs, improved printing precision, and the speed of 3D printers. The advent of 3D printers in medical fields, especially in radiotherapy, allows to produce any given specific design for patients from novel 3D printable materials. Generally, the applications of this modern industry in radiotherapy can be counted as the creation of traditional patient-specific bolus, brachytherapy applicators, personalized medical devices, physical phantoms for quality assurance (QA), compensator blocks, and patient-specific immobilization devices. Despite the technological advancements of 3D printing in radiotherapy practices, due to the high manufacturing cost, the printing speed, time-consuming workflows, poor conformability, and poor repeatability of applied materials, it is not currently well supported by most radiotherapy techniques. The applications of the 3D printing technology as well as its limitations in radiotherapy are discussed in following.