AccScience Publishing / IJB / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/IJB025380389
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Early Access

Integrated 3D printing of cementless CoCrMo femoral condyles optimizes trabecular surfaces and material performance

Jiawei Wu1† Zhiwei Zhou1† Tianbai Yu1,2 Wei Wang1 Brian Y. Chang3,4*
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1 Suzhou Microport Orthorecon Co., Ltd., Suzhou, Jiangsu, China
2 School of Health Science and Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science & Technology, Shanghai, China
3 Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
4 Miracle Point Global LLC, Irvine, CA, USA
†These authors contributed equally to this work.
Received: 19 September 2025 | Accepted: 3 November 2025 | Published online: 11 November 2025
(This article belongs to the Special Issue 3D-Printed Biomedical Devices)
© 2025 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

Conventional cementless femoral condyles in artificial knee systems are commonly manufactured by casting followed by a surface treatment using plasma spraying or metallic sintering. However, both techniques suffer from weak coating-substrate interfaces that contribute to early loosening and higher revision rates. To overcome this limitation, we employed Integrated 3D Printing (I3P), an additive manufacturing strategy based on laser powder bed fusion (LPBF), to fabricate monolithic cobalt-chromium-molybdenum (CoCrMo) femoral condyles with trabecular-inspired porous architectures. Compared with cast–sintered (CS) counterparts, I3P substrates exhibited refined microstructures and superior mechanical performance after hot isostatic pressing, reaching a yield strength of 637.33 MPa, ultimate tensile strength of 1140.00 MPa, and elongation of 27.33%. The I3P femoral condyles also showed enhanced fatigue resistance, withstanding 10 million cycles under a 3000 N load, and demonstrated improved wear behavior against ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene liners. Furthermore, the trabecular-inspired lattice achieved stronger integration with the substrate than sintered coatings, with tensile and shear strengths of 56.09 MPa and 49.97 MPa, respectively.  Together, these findings establish I3P as a robust manufacturing strategy that integrates substrate and surface in a single step, enabling the production of durable, osteointegrative femoral condyles with significant potential to improve implant longevity and clinical outcomes in knee joint reconstruction.

Keywords
Additive manufacturing; Integrated 3D printing (I3P)
Cementless femoral condyles
Cobalt-chromium-molybdenum (CoCrMo) alloys
Trabecular surface architecture
Osteointegration
Fatigue and wear resistance
Total knee arthroplasty (TKA)
Funding
All materials, products, equipment, and funding for this study were provided by Suzhou Microport Orthorecon Co., Ltd.
Conflict of interest
JW, ZZ, TY, WW are employees of Suzhou Microport Orthorecon, a subsidiary of MicroPort Orthopedics who produces and markets the commercial EVOLUTION femoral condyle implant that is examined in this study. BYC is an employee of MicroPort at the time of publication of this work.
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International Journal of Bioprinting, Electronic ISSN: 2424-8002 Print ISSN: 2424-7723, Published by AccScience Publishing