Proclaim Healthcare is testing the limits of 3D printing with a new oral health tool that looks to boost the efficacy of flossing via custom-made mouthpieces, as Emilie Eisenberg reports
For many people, flossing their teeth is a dreary task, often avoided until their dentist remonstrates with them. For Proclaim Health, it’s a gap in the market that the company is hoping to clean up.
According to Proclaim Health marketing director David Hood, most people don’t floss effectively or don’t bother at all – but there are clear links between gum disease and other conditions including cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
To help patients tackle such concerns, Menlo Park, California-based Proclaim set out to create a tool that would make better tooth and gum health easier. The Proclaim Custom-Jet Oral Health System is customised to the individual user’s mouth and can pressure-wash a full mouth of teeth in just 7 seconds, entirely eliminating the need for traditional flossing.
Proclaim states that a clinical study of the Custom-Jet’s performance has shown a reduction in gum bleeding by up to 82% and a reduction in gum inflammation by up to 41% after 30 days of use.
We start with a dental scan and create each system to fit in a person’s mouth, with the jets pointed in the right spots and with just the right pressure
Say cheese
“We start with a dental scan and create each system to fit a person’s mouth and get the jets pointed in the right spots, with just the right pressure,” says Brent Goldstein, vice president of software and digital-customised medical products at Proclaim. “There’s nothing else like it in the world today.”
In part, this is because traditional injection moulding doesn’t allow for custom designs to be manufactured for each user or for the insertion of targeted fluid lines within each mouthpiece.
The team at Proclaim realised that 3D printing would enable it to best optimise their design’s functional requirements, which included surface quality, biocompatibility, translucency and cost per part. From there, they turned to 3D Systems’ Application Innovation Group (AIG) for advice.
The AIG team at 3D Systems worked alongside Proclaim’s engineers to manufacture a mouthpiece with eight manifold capillaries running through it.
Each tube breaks off into multiple nozzles capable of accurately focusing up to 60 water jets at exactly the right points in the user’s mouth.
The design is powered by a single pump unit, the Hydro Station, which pulses nearly 650ml of water through to the mouthpiece during each 7-second session. Each custommade mouthpiece is interchangeable within the Hydro Station, so multiple members of a household can use the device with their own mouthpiece.
All cleaned up
Once confident that the mouthpiece design met its technical feasibility requirements, Proclaim embarked on a beta testing phase, bringing a 3D Systems SLA 7000 3D printer in-house in order to produce multiple prototype units.
With satisfactory early results under its belt, the Proclaim team then moved to the next stage of industrial scaleup and mass production. For this, it turned to additive manufacturing production house In’Tech Industries, based in Minnesota and home to a fleet of 3D Systems SLA large-format printers.
First, Proclaim’s learnings and optimisations from the SLA 7000 had to be transferred to fit In’Tech’s large-format SLA approach. In’Tech has extensive experience of mass producing medical-grade products, including custom hearing aids and orthodontic products.
Over the course of three months, In’Tech performed 3D printing, post-processing, assembly, hydrotesting, and both high- and low-tolerance testing for the mouthpiece.
Using its experience and the resources available in its tooling, engineering and moulding facility, In’Tech enhanced the product further, developing finishes for the bottom section of the mouthpiece and adding plastic elements so that it attaches better to the main device.
With FDA clearance achieved, In’Tech began scaling up production. Now, when each online order is received, the company prints the mouthpiece, post-processes and assembles the parts, before hydrotesting and further cleaning. Then the device is packed and shipped to Proclaim’s fulfilment centre, from where it is sent straight to the user.
With the Custom-Jet becoming part of everyday routines in bathrooms around America, it’s also a healthy sign that more custom products are being enabled by additive manufacturing.
This article first appeared in DEVELOP3D Magazine
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