Designing a methodological framework for the individualization of prosthetic implants: a literature-based approach

Abstract

Despite the considerable advantages associated with product individualization, the utilization of standardized components prevails in medical devices like prosthetic implants. This is primarily due to the laborious and expensive nature of individualizing these intricate product models, necessitating expertise in design synthesis and additional manual effort. However, additive manufacturing offers the opportunity to produce highly variable products, e.g., free-form surfaces or complex topologies, allowing for developing process chains in computer-aided engineering environments (CAEE) that can address potential complexities in product individualization. Nevertheless, existing process chains do not provide a methodological framework for individualizing new products because they do not holistically consider data sources, solution space modeling, and final variant evaluation holistically. This study aims to provide a systematic literature review of individualization services for complex product models in the domain of prosthetic implants for additive manufacturing. A multi-criteria decision analysis is used to select relevant individualization services. The contribution of this study is to identify a methodological framework with characteristic features and requirements for the individualization of prosthetic implants, which have the potential to be formalized and automated in a CAEE.