Anyone who wears an implant today also carries an implant passport. It provides information on the exact name, serial number and manufacturer of such medical devices. It may soon be possible to identify implants more reliably and securely using a new process that is currently being tested at the Fraunhofer IWU: When 3D printing artificial joints, tiny patterns are incorporated inside the components as codes. They are unchangeable and can be clearly identified at any time by X-ray machines or computer tomography. In an emergency, doctors can quickly find out the characteristics of an implant by looking at a database - even if patients do not carry the passport with them or have lost it after many years.
You can think of it as an implant within an implant. While stainless steel or titanium is hardened layer by layer in 3D printing, the implant marking developed at the Fraunhofer IWU systematically incorporates tiny cavities on the inside that cannot be seen from the outside. In this way, a QR code is implanted into the metal.
The implanted code process is also valuable for all manufacturing companies that want to make their production more efficient or prevent product piracy. Components no longer need to be fitted with additional identification features or information carriers, such as RFID chips, during production.
With implanted codes, finished products can also be clearly identified throughout their entire service life. Imitations can be recognized at any time.
In exactly one year's time, the European regulation with the obligation for uniform product identification for medical devices (UDI) will come into force. The technology developed at IWU is perfect for this.
Source: Fraunhofer IWU
