UC Surgeons Turn to 3D-Printed Organs in the OR

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You say forty five if if you have KCD talk station, are very happy Tuesday to you and looking forward to this all morning. It sounds absolutely fascinating, an amazing development of the field of medicine. Joining me doctor Prashawn Robbie. He is the CEO of a company called Medior, a three D and faculty member in the Department of Radiology at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, and he heart to talk about the use of three D printing

Today, likewise glad to be here.

Now. I guess the gist of this is, you know, there are CT scans out there, and there are MRIs, and I know before going into surgery, like for heart surgery, you rely on those to figure out what is wrong, I say, with like a microvalve prolapse or there's you know what cardiac valve repair. That's the surgery you're planning on doing. But I guess those scans have limitations. But by using three D technology, you're actually recreating, for example, a model of the heart so you can see all

Absolutely, So what we're doing is essentially describing what the information in the CP scan in the form of a three D model, which is much more intuitive for the surgeon to understand and grasp.

And so when you build one of these, let's say let's stick with the heart for example, you build one of these, it is a mirror image of your patient's heart. Can you then sort of take it apart and find out where the anomalies and the problems are. Is you know, multi piece three dimensional image is like a puzzle kind of thing.

Yeah.

Absolutely, This would have to be planned in a step called computer ared design. So you would take the information in the CP scan and kind of segment the anatomy so the structures that are of interest with the surgeon, and then yes, there is a way to put it in the form of puzzle pieces and actually print those pieces, so the surgeon can have a physical kind of puzzle piece, you know, to put together and get a better understanding of that particular patient's anatomy.

That's just that's absolutely fascinating. Now you've been involved in three D printing for a long time. Judging from your CV here that I have in front of me. Has three D printing gotten to the point where there is that? I mean, is it? Is it exactly accurate replica? I just I think you think of pre printing from what I've seen is sort of rudimentary, and that you know, this human body is so very complicated and there's all kinds of things going on in there that are beyond

Yeah, the technology has come quite a ways, and yeah, so if the information is captured in the CD scan atom to be precise, Yes, the three D printant model that results from it is very accurate compared to the CD scan and the patient's anatomy.

Now can this be in the heart? I understand your valves and everything goes on. Can this technology be used in other forms of surgery? I mean, is it is it sort of limited an application to a heart?

No, not at all. There's actually a multitude of surgeries where this technology is now being applied to help surgeons plan that approach better. This can include liver lacerations, trauma of the pelvis, jaw fractures, kidney transplants and a bunch of other procedures where this is having a real impact in how the surgeries are being planned.

Now, is it possible at some day to use this as a diagnostic tool because I guess a CT scan and an MRI and these images are as good as the radiologist report comes out. And is it possible that a radiologist might miss something that could be revealed with a three D model.

Absolutely, and it happens all the time. And think of it this way. So when a surgeon actually looks through a CT scan, he has to scroll through hundreds of these slices to mentally map the anatomy in his mind, and this can take thirty to sixty minutes of his time. But the same information can be presented in the form of a three D printed model and can convey that

How about that? Now, correct me if I'm wrong. But when you're removing a cancer tumor, is it the most procedure that they keep scraping away and scraping away until they find no more evidence of the cancer in the in the in the scan or in the in the analysis.

Yes, exactly. And then how a three D printed model can help in this case is if there's any vasculature of blood vessels that are involved. Yeah, it can help the surgeon carefully delineate and understand how those vessels actually course through and around the tumor, so they can preserve those vessels while taking away the tumor.

Oh wow, that's kind of what I was thinking it could be used for. That's amazing. Now, how long does it take if you're thinking about a heart procedure of out procedure, how long does it take to build one of these three dimensional organs?

So it can take several last two days with current technology typically on the order of days. If you want life size and atomic models, you would have to scale them down at present to achieve a model on time, you know, for some of the urgent cases. And that's where VTRR three d's technology is really kind of changing the game and enabling same day models for surgeries.

Fascinating now is are the three D models multi colored? So for example, if you're talking about a tumor or a mitro valve, that it would be enhanced with a different color three D print medium.

Yes, that is correct, that is three printed capability that can actually color code different anatomical structures for better visualization and identification.

So your company, a Media or three D, did you invent the technology to convert a CT scan, for example, into the computer coding to create the three D model, because that obviously involves some sort of complex process that again is beyond my understanding.

Well, Media three technology, my co founder and I invented a technology that can considerably speed up the process of actually the printing side, because the actual printing of the model is the slowest step in the process. I'm going from a CT scan to a final three dimensional model. So that's where our intellectual property actually lies. We are not dealing with the upstream side, the digital side, where you actually take a CT scan and make a digital

If that makes sense, It does make sense. Well, doctor Robbie, can you just give my listeners an illustration of how you've employed the three D modeling and you know which which resulted in you choosing or a doctor choosing a different surgical outcome or process than they would have done had they been not had they not had a three D model.

Yeah. Absolutely. My mind goes back to a recent case which involved the chess CT scan up a patient and the surgeon specifically in this case was an endoscopic surgeon who wanted to operate on the mitral valve of the patients. This is the valve that sits between the left upper and lower chamber of the heart, and in order to operate on that valve, the surgeon needs to enter the

Oh wow, doctor Prashaw, Robbie, it's been a real pleasure talking with you. Congratulations on your involvement in this amazing technology life saving. It certainly will be, and I imagine it's going to be sort of widely used very soon in modern medicine. Modern surgery is just right around the corner three D printing. Doctor rob just thanks again for being on the program and taking care of your patients

Yeah, thank you so much.

My pleasure A forty five or eight fifty five if you five Kresty talk station Future medicine right there, I guess Folks inside scoop right Bart News Curtains and Delka joined us. Gave us a little down to the French election Shenanigans and law fair and it sounds a lot like in France. What's going on here, most notably the European Union collectively when it comes to illegal immigration and people's perceptions of it. Daniel Davis Deep Dive, of course,

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