Not sure how tricky an operation with be? Practice surgery with a three-dimensional replica.
That’s the approach being taken by surgeons at the University of Washington Medical Center and Seattle Children’s Hospital. They’ve printed a flexible, 3-D copy of a 26-year-old woman’s heart in the hopes that it will give them insights into how best to tackle an upcoming pacemaker surgery.
Seattle’s KOMO News reports that Kami Sutton was born with a heart that is “backwards” — on the right, not left, side of her chest — leaving her in congestive failure at all times.
“The model allows us the ability to get it wrong in a practice session so we can feel more comfortable going in when the real thing comes,” says Dr. Stephen Seslar of Seattle Children’s.
You can see the flexible 3-D model in action in the KOMO story.