3D MODELS FOR PREOPERATIVE PLANNING
BACKGROUND
When performing surgeries, often the only pieces of information that surgeons have to go off of are 2D images of a 3D problem. Although learning how to visualize these problems using the images that are available and developing a surgical plan from there is a significant portion of their training, Dr. Matthew Bramlet and I were curious whether the additional information of having a 3D model would help. As Dr. Bramlet is a pediatric cardiologist, we were focused first on whether it would be possible to create a model that accurately depicted the intracardiac structure of a pediatric heart with a congenital heart defect.
PROCEDURE
This initially was an (approved) side project that I was working on after hours so I was trying to work with the materials and products available to me.
I used Mimics Innovation Suite in order to take in the MRI DICOM images and segment the heart. One difficulty that I came across was that we only had the Z450 3D printer at the time, which printed in a opaque plaster-like material. Thus, I needed to come up with a reverse segmentation method since standard methods segmented the whole heart, leaving us no way to see the intracardiac structure if an opaque material was used. Thus, I developed a method to slice the 3D heart and, with Dr. Bramelt's help, found the optimal slice method such that the heart valves could be seen in one plane.
SUCCESS AND MEDIA ATTENTION
The first heart we printed aided the surgeon significantly and we gained media attention for it. From then onward, we made it a practice to 3D print hearts for the hospital's complex pediatric cardiac cases.
After success in the area of pediatric cardiology, I began receiving requests to print 3D models for other surgical departments at our hospital, but also from institutions all over the US and Canada. By the time I had left to continue my studies in Graduate School, I had printed models to aid in the areas of orthopedics, facial reconstruction, and cardiology.
Links to media:
https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-3d-printed-hearts-surgery-1023-biz-20161021-story.html
https://www.peoriapublicradio.org/post/local-doctor-hoping-build-library-hearts#stream/0
https://www.pjstar.com/article/20130214/NEWS/302149885
https://www.peoriamagazines.com/ibi/2013/may/expansion-exploration-engineering-making-history