3D Printed Ceramic Implants Hit 500 at KLS Martin

3D printed ceramic implants are leaving the research collaboration and landing on a hospital order screen. On September 16, 2026, TCT reported that KLS Martin will deliver its 500th Lithoz LCM implant by the end of Q3, with LithaBone TCP now listed on the surgeon-facing IPS Gate platform. For shops that already print continuous fiber in polymer, this is patient-specific geometry under a medical quality system — not a coupon you slice at a desk.

What's Happening

TCT’s September 16 report is the source for the unit count and the catalog change. The 500th implant is scheduled through Individual Patient Solutions (IPS) Gate, KLS Martin’s case-planning app for custom implants. LithaBone TCP — tricalcium phosphate — is now an official product on that platform. Frank Reinauer, Senior Director Division Implant at KLS Martin, says surgeons can plan, specify, and order a patient-specific bioceramic through the same digital workflow they already use for other IPS parts. That “shortens the path from CT data to a case-specific, tailored-porosity scaffold,” in his wording. Treat the 500-unit timetable as the company’s, not an audited production log in the TCT piece.

The printers are Lithoz lithography-based ceramic manufacturing (LCM) systems. TCT says they operate under an ISO 13485-certified quality management system and print patient- and case-specific geometries with tailored porosities meant to influence how the scaffold degrades as new bone replaces it. Fixation can still use titanium screws. KLS Martin also offers SonicWeld Rx resorbable polymer pins, which the company describes as creating an all-resorbable implant unit that avoids a second surgery. That second-surgery claim is KLS’s product framing in TCT, not a randomized trial published in the news article.

Johannes Homa, Lithoz CEO, dates the work to a 12-year research collaboration with KLS Martin and calls IPS Gate listing a milestone for bioceramic printing in surgery. He points to “general global adoption of LCM in MedTech.” That adoption line is Homa’s, stated to TCT. What the news story does not do is publish complication rates, lot sizes, or a third-party count of LCM implants worldwide. Keep those attached to the speaker until the clinical papers — not the press quote — carry the number.

Why 3D Printed Ceramic Implants Matter for Shops and Clinics

Patient-specific polymer jigs have been a shop-floor story for years. Patient-specific resorbable ceramic is a different stack: slurry, light, sinter/process, sterility, and a surgeon app. The practical signal in TCT is not a new printer brand. It is that a 500-unit line item now sits next to KLS Martin’s other IPS products, which is how hospitals actually order. If you run a small manufacturing cell, the analogue is less “I should print bone” and more “geometry from scan data only becomes a product when the quality system and the ordering path exist.”

What does not transfer to a garage is the material. β-TCP is meant to be replaced by bone. Nylon with continuous carbon fiber is meant to stay. Mixing those jobs is how people get dangerous ideas about homemade implants. The useful split is envelope and regulation. A bench printer lives inside a few hundred millimeters and a test you can run yourself. An LCM implant lives inside ISO 13485, a clean process, and a surgical plan. Do not scale a 92.9% grafting figure from a 14-patient jaw series down to “this CF bracket is osteoconductive.”

How 3D Printed Ceramic Implants Differ From Desktop Composite Parts

• Feedstock. LCM uses a ceramic-loaded photopolymer slurry that becomes β-TCP after processing. Desktop composite work uses thermoplastic plus a continuous carbon or glass tow. Different chemistry, different post-steps.
• Purpose. LithaBone TCP is designed to resorb as bone fills tailored pores. A carbon-fiber fixture is designed to keep its stiffness. Do not treat resorption as a print-mode setting.
• Ordering path. IPS Gate takes CT planning into a hospital catalog. Desktop jobs start in a slicer on a bench PC. The 500th unit is a catalog event as much as a print event.
• Quality system. TCT reports KLS Martin’s LCM printers under ISO 13485. Desktop polymer printers are not medical devices because you ran a tensile coupon.
• Fixation. Titanium screws or SonicWeld Rx resorbable pins, per KLS. Desktop parts are bolted or clipped to machines, not osteotomies.
• Shop takeaway. Use LCM for qualified, patient-matched bioceramic scaffolds. Use the bench for jigs, trays, and housings around a clinic or shop — never as a substitute bone graft.

What the Research Says

Swennen, Weinberg, Pottel, and KLS Martin co-authors Aksu and Reinauer followed 14 patients who received bilateral β-TCP gap patient-specific implants during bilateral sagittal split osteotomy between July 2017 and July 2018. Mean age was 32.4 years; mean sagittal advancement was 9.4 mm. Intraoperative placement had no early complications. After five years, mandibular border contour was rated very good or good on 82.1% of sides, two minor long-term complications occurred, and total grafting success was 92.9%. The paper presents this as a concept-and-workflow study to reduce antegonial notching after BSSO, and it calls for quantitative follow-up in part 2. Swennen discloses a clinical-developer relationship with KLS Martin; that conflict belongs next to the 92.9% figure (Swennen et al., 2025).

Diaz, Torroni, Witek, and colleagues tested LCM-made 100% β-TCP scaffolds in critical-sized rabbit mandibular defects. Micro-CT found bridging bone, about 8.6 ± 3.5% regenerated bone within the construct, and about 33 ± 3.2% remaining scaffold. Histology showed vascularized woven and lamellar bone without ectopic bone, excess inflammation, or fracture in that short-term model. That is an animal pilot on architecture and early bone fill, not a count of 500 human implants. It does support the claim that LCM can hold designed porosity in β-TCP well enough for bone to enter the lattice (Diaz et al., 2025).

Frequently Asked Questions

What are 3D printed ceramic implants used for?

KLS Martin prints patient-specific β-tricalcium phosphate scaffolds on Lithoz LCM machines so bone can grow in as the ceramic resorbs. TCT says the 500th unit ships by the end of Q3 2026 via IPS Gate. Swennen’s five-year BSSO series reported 92.9% grafting success in 14 patients. A desktop polymer printer does not make this hardware.

How does lithography-based ceramic manufacturing differ from desktop 3D printing?

LCM photopolymerizes ceramic slurry layer by layer under a medical quality system, then the part is processed as a bioceramic implant. Desktop composite printers melt thermoplastic and can lay a continuous carbon or glass tow for fixtures. Same additive idea, different feedstock, sterility, and regulation. Treat KLS’s 500-unit mark and ISO 13485 line as company figures in the TCT report.

Can a desktop carbon fiber printer make bone implants?

No. KLS Martin’s LithaBone TCP parts are resorbable ceramic scaffolds ordered through a surgeon platform, with optional SonicWeld polymer pins. Desktop continuous-fiber printers lay polymer with a carbon tow for jigs and housings inside a few hundred millimeters. Use the bench machine for fixtures around a clinic, not for replacing a CeraFab bone graft.

Fibricate's Place in This Story

A CeraFab bone scaffold and a bench composite printer occupy opposite ends of “patient-specific.” Companies like Fibricate, whose FibreSeeker 3 continuous carbon fiber 3D printer lays designed stiffness from feedstock such as the continuous carbon fiber spool, sit where shops need fixtures, trays, and housings in a few hundred millimeters. KLS Martin’s 500th implant is ceramic, resorbable, and ordered through IPS Gate. Keep the lanes separate: LCM for qualified grafts; continuous fiber for the tools around the operating room, never inside the osteotomy.

What to Watch Next

Watch whether IPS Gate listing changes order volume after the 500th unit, and whether KLS Martin publishes complication and resorption data at catalog scale rather than in 14-patient series. Watch part 2 of the Swennen workflow papers for the quantitative contour measurements the authors said were still required. Over the next 12–24 months, more MedTech catalogs will add printed bioceramics; fewer will show five-year human follow-up. For desktop shops the watch item is smaller: clinics will keep needing polymer fixtures. Your printer still earns its keep on parts you can path and inspect — not on replacing a TCP scaffold that is supposed to disappear.

References & Further Reading

1. Swennen, G. R. J., Aksu, A. E., Reinauer, F., Pottel, L., & Weinberg, Y. (2025). Beta-tricalcium phosphate patient-specific gap implants in bilateral sagittal split osteotomy: an innovative treatment method to enhance the mandibular border contour. Part 1: concept and workflow. International Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery.
2. Diaz, A. L., Torroni, A., Pineda Flores, J. L., Tovar, N., Bergamo, E. T. P., Silva, B. L. G., & Witek, L. (2025). 3D Printed Beta-TCP Ceramic Bone Replacement Manufactured by Lithography-Based Ceramic Manufacturing: A Short-Term Pilot Study. Journal of Craniofacial Surgery.
3. KLS Martin set to deliver 500th LCM 3D printed implant in Q3 2026. TCT Magazine. Retrieved September 16, 2026.