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M O N T H 2 0 1 4 | S U P P L E M E N T T O O U T P AT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E
Practice before surgery
How do your surgeons currently prepare for procedures? They'll get the medical
imaging and view it in consecutive 2D images. But if you have a 3D printout of
the entire organ in your hand, you get a real sense of the dimensions and what
the best access route is. You can actually hold it, along with the tool that you'll
use to fix the organ, so you know whether the tool's the right size and whether
it will fit along that access path.
The "printout" is just as it sounds, a virtually identical 3D replica, created
slowly, layer by layer, by what looks like an ordinary printer, using medical
imaging. The technology, first developed in the 1980s, can now incorporate sev-
eral printing nozzles and printing materials we can choose from. You can adjust
the settings of the printer to make something feel more like tissue or feel more
like bone. That replication of texture lets surgeons get a feel for exactly what
they'll be dealing with before they operate. With tissue-like material, the surgeon
can place needles in the material and actually practice before doing the surgery.
We've done just that here at the Children's National Health System, creating
replicas for surgeons who needed to close holes in infants' hearts. A 3D replica of
an infant heart takes a couple of hours to print; an adult heart may take up to 10
hours.
Broad applications
The potential applications, if proven beneficial, may be almost limitless, includ-
N E W D I M E N S I O N S
W
ith 3D visualization, you can see structures inside
the human body with stunning depth and clarity, but
not until you've "invaded" — however minimally —
the cavities they occupy. How much would it help if
you could gain the same level of depth and clarity
before you incise, if you knew exactly what you'd see once you get there?
That's the motivating idea behind using 3D printing in surgery.
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