Patient-specific resorbable membrane for guided bone regeneration surgery: a novel design to facilitate the production process

Although bioresorbable polymers have been used to produce guided bone regeneration (GBR) membranes for many years, the fabrication of such membranes with custom design was prevented by production limitations. However, in addition to less risk of infection and no need for membrane removal surgery, patient-specific resorbable membranes can significantly reduce installation difficulty, time of surgery, and patient’s bleeding. This paper presented a novel method to design custom GBR membranes which are producible by the common 3D-bioprinters. Results showed acceptable geometrical accuracy and mechanical stability of the fabricated GBR membranes for covering the bone defect site in two real cases.