Hospitals Can 3D Print a Patient's Vasculature For Aneurysm Pre-Op Practice (computerworld.com)

Lucas123 writes: University of Buffalo physicians and researchers from two institutes working with 3D printer maker Stratasys have successfully 3D-printed anatomically correct models of patients' vascular systems — from their femoral artery to their brain — in order to test various surgical techniques prior to an actual operation. The new 3D printed models not only precisely replicate blood vessels' geometry, but the texture and tissue tension, allowing surgeons a realistic preoperative experience when using catheterization techniques. The printed models are also being used by physicians in training.

Comments

Re:Time constraints

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the ability to practice on a particular patient really necessary? It seems like the time it would take to do a dry-run is the time that the surgeon could be performing another surgery.

For lack of a better analogy, imagine if air travel involved teleporting from your living room to an airplane seat, rather than an hour drive/parking to the airport, arriving two hours ahead for security, half an hour to pick up your luggage at the other end, etc...

The time to perform a dry run is also a lot less than the time associated with the actual surgery. There's no actual patient to deal with. No anaesthesiology. No prep. No worries about sterility. No patient to get complications that might require further intervention. Etc... and the surgeon in this case is already spending a fair bit of quality time with radiographs and/or 3d-rendered models of the aneurysm in question in order to figure out the best way in/out of it. (And to further abuse the travel analogy, the big veins in the legs and the neck are mostly the same, but once you get off the highway after having left the airport, every trip is unique. Cerebral vascular surgery is very much a last-mile problem.)