The 3D printing technology has been a great tool for making different things, including those that are being used in surgeries. Recently, BBC reported that a 3D-printed model of the blood vessels inside a woman's brain has been used to aid surgeons practice life-saving surgery - and in this case, saving a woman's life.
The surgeons needed to operate to correct an aneurysm in a blood vessel inside the patient's brain. Aneurysm is a bulging blood vessel caused by a weakness in an artery wall that risks rupturing. Thus, scans of the said problem revealed that such typical method and procedure of operating on aneurysm would not have worked.
This particular 3D printing technology intended for medical use increasingly finds its role to either help doctors evaluate and prepare before administering procedures or crafting prosthetics.
According to the health news advisory, New York state resident Theresa Flint was diagnosed with an aneurysm that, if remained untreated, would have proven fatal. The finding was made after she complained of experiencing "vision problems and recurrent headaches."
"The usual way to treat such problems is to implant a metallic basket that strengthens the artery wall. However, this seemed to work as scans of the weak and severely twisted blood vessel revealed such," said Dr. Adnan Siddiqui, chief medical officer at the Jacobs Institute in Buffalo, New York, who directed the treatment.
"It was a serious problem from the standpoint that she had an extremely irregular brain aneurysm that would be tricky to treat with micro-surgery," he added.
"It may not be needed for the majority of routine cases," he exclaimed, "but here its help was immeasurable."
According to the surgeons, 3D printing could be intensely used to plan procedures and make models of patients' anatomy to help them assess and execute successful surgeries.
