Engineered porous metals for implants

Interest is significant in patient-specific implants with the possibility of guided tissue regeneration, particularly for load-bearing implants. For such implants to succeed, novel design approaches and fabrication technologies that can achieve balanced mechanical and functional performance in the implants are necessary. This article is focused on porous load-bearing implants with tailored micro-as well as macrostructures using laser-engineered net shaping (LENS™), a solid freeform fabrication or rapid prototyping technique that can be used to manufacture patient-specific implants. This review provides an insight into LENS, some properties of porous metals, and the potential applications of this process to fabricate unitized structures which can eliminate longstanding challenges in load-bearing implants to increase their in-vivo lifetime, such as in a total hip prosthesis.