Healthcare Technology Featured Article

March 04, 2014

3D Printing Saves a Baby's Life-Again


Remember Kaiba Gionfriddo? This tot was born with a certain defect that caused his airway to collapse, and might well have ultimately killed him. He's not alone, either; around 2,000 children are born every year with just such a defect, and though many are corrected by the time the child turns three, this isn't always the case. But a 3D printed device rendered this defect largely meaningless, and 3D printing is once again saving the lives of children thanks to a new case involving a 3D printed model of a human heart.

This time, it all went down at Kosair Children's Hospital, where a 14 month old with fully four separate congenital heart defects came into the room. The defects in question formed a network of infirmity so complex that just planning the surgery in question was going to be tall order in its own right, let alone actually carrying it out. What was needed was a physical model, as well as 3D visualization capability, and those are the two biggest stocks in trade for 3D printing.

Dr. Phillip Dydynski, who serves as Kosair Children's Hospital's chief of pediatric radiology, turned to a company known as Materialise, who commonly handles software for medical image data and 3D printing. Materialise's Mimics Innovation Suite turned out to be the tool for the job, allowing doctors to bring various medical image types—including both CT and MRI—into use to create a 3D model of the images in question. Essentially, with the Mimics Innovation Suite, Dr. Dydynski could create an accurate representation of the child's heart, complete with the relevant defects as spotted by the appropriate imaging scanners. The 3D model was then routed to the University of Louisville, where the J.B. Speed School of Engineering could engage in 3D printing the model, and the result was sent back to Kosair Children's Hospital.

Basically, the doctor and the 3D printing capability managed to create a version of this child's heart, likely from extruded plastic, that was so realistic that it was almost like being inside the child's chest cavity. Said doctors could then plan out the surgery in question, know just where to go, just what to do, and just how to do it all before that child was in the same room as a scalpel. The reports suggest that the surgery went well—Materialise's Todd Pietila made note of “positive clinical outcomes”--and a full recovery is on tap.

The unspoken point in there, of course, is that without the model this might not have happened. Without the model it was entirely possible that a child, barely old enough to even understand life, might well have lost it. But because that model was available, and of such quality, the doctors could plan out the surgery to a trice, and then use that planning to use the simplest, least-invasive approach possible. That meant less time spent healing after surgery, a more efficient surgical process, and better results for literally everybody involved in the equation.

With hospital stays costing as much as currently seen, reducing the time spent in the hospital seems like a great way for hospitals to save some money and help reduce costs to the patients accordingly. Faster, better surgery is good for all concerned, and 3D printing may be just what we need to get the job done.




Edited by Cassandra Tucker
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