4d printing research trends and applications in the medical field: a scientometric analysis

Abstract

Innovation plays a key role on a company’s either success or failure. But innovation is not just the creating or adopting new technologies; it is also directly connected with a solid strategic planning. Competitive technology intelligence is based on the systematic and ethical process of gathering, analyzing and transforming information into actionable knowledge. It aims to support decision making and strategic planning, because the knowledge produced by this methodology constitutes an early warning for research, development and innovation [19]. Three-dimensional (3D) printing is a technique of additive manufacturing that has revolutionized engineering, product design and manufacturing, as it allows the rapid conversion of digital 3D model information into physical static objects [45]. However, in the last few years a new possibility has been introduced to add ’time’ as a new dimension to create 4D printing. The medical field keeps changing and progressing at a high speed with new technologies emerging every day. 4D printing on the medical field is an area where it is necessary to provide decision makers with an overview of technological knowledge that helps them generate innovation opportunities. On this thesis, a Competitive technology intelligence approach was executed to identify trends in 4D printing technologies applied to the medical field, in order to provide relevant information through a technological landscape to support decision makers to uncover innovation opportunities. The results of the analysis revealed that most of the research developed is on the materials category, which relates completely to the fact that smart materials are the key difference between 3D and 4D printing. Most of the researches focus on shape memory polymers, hydrogels and liquid crystal elastomers. On the processes category researched is focused on the physical configuration of the printing model, printing parameters and adapting machines to modify the printing configurations. As for the applications, three main subcategories were identified, hollow tubes/stents, tissue engineering and drug delivery. According to the growth kinetics it is a field that although is fairly new, keeps growing and will keep gaining attention.