CARDIOLOGY
A Model Lab
What if 3D rotational angiography
could do the work of a CT scan?
In the catheterization lab Children’s Hospital
Colorado congenital interventional cardiologists
Jenny Zablah Alabi, MD, and Gareth Morgan, MD,
are leveraging 3D rotational angiography in ways
never described, using software and segmentation
techniques Dr. Zablah largely developed herself.
With them, their multidisciplinary team is creating
detailed images of vessels and airways, life-size
3D printed models and virtual reality-based
animations that place interventionists inside a
beating heart.
The patient was 4 months old, weighing just 10 pounds. She was
born with transposition of the great arteries. The repair was
successful, but it left her with progressive severe stenosis, a
common complication.
Pediatric cardiac interventionist Jenny Zablah Alabi, MD, explains
the procedure using a life-size 3D model she printed in her office.
She points out the pulmonary arteries. They’re hardly thicker
than a hairpin. A second model depicts the patient’s heart postcatheterization,
detailed enough to show latticework of stents Dr.
Working with InWorks, Dr. Zablah uses 3DRA data to generate different
types of models for different purposes. For families, she prints basic
models in her office that help them understand the before-and-after of
their child’s procedure.
Zablah threaded up through the femoral artery and opened like
tiny umbrellas at the areas of stenosis.
Congenital interventional cardiologist Gareth Morgan, MD,
considers the models. “The company that manufactured our
imaging system didn’t know it had this sort of capability. They didn’t
even realize it was possible.”
Updated just more than a year ago with what Dr. Morgan calls “all
the bells and whistles,” the system is one of the most powerful
and capable on the market. Drs. Zablah and Morgan are figuring
out how to leverage that capability in ways that go far beyond the
commercial specs.
“We’re squeezing out every drop,” he says.
WORKING NEW ANGLES
Three-dimensional rotational angiography, or 3DRA, has been
a staple of catheterization labs for years. It’s typically used for
procedural planning and sometimes guidance, layered on standard
biplane angiograms to ensure accuracy.
8 | CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL COLORADO