to the effect
ain. Holding a
portion of the
ter of the brain,
em solving, that
any other way.”
researchers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and at
Children’s Colorado.
“We got a printer and they sent someone out to give me a one-hour
tutorial,” says Dr. Zablah. “And then I started printing.”
It worked great. The models she produced were accurate and trueto-size,
great for visualizing patient-specific physiology. Surgeons
loved them.
She wondered if they could print models from more pliable
material her own team could use to practice placing stents. For
that they used what Jacobson calls the “robust, room size printers”
at Inworks. Those also came in handy when Dr. Zablah figured out
how to segment not only the vessels, but the airways.
“In these babies with abnormal heart physiology, a stent can make
the vessel too big and crush the airway, and then you’re in big
trouble,” says Dr. Morgan. “We used to use bronchoscopes or inject
contrast down the airway to figure out that anatomy. Jenny worked
out a way just to pick the airway out of these pictures basically by
segmenting where there’s no contrast.
“She’s the first person to work that out,” he adds.
Aside from the time and risk it eliminates, the ability to model
vessels and airways simultaneously improves accuracy, since both