3D printing makes child surgery “safer, quicker and easier”

A 3D printed model of a trachea helped surgeons perform a more accurate surgical procedure on a child at Great Ormond Street Hospital

An exact replica model of a trachea has been used to trial a complex procedure prior to a child going under anaesthetic at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH).

The 3D model allows for equipment that is best matched to individual patients to be selected prior to surgery and reduces the time spent on the operating table.

The team at GOSH used a CT scan of the patient’s chest to create an anatomically accurate 3D tracheal model that allowed the procedure to be trialled by surgeons and anaesthetists before operating on the patient. 

The model was completely personalised to the patient and created in hours.

The technique was trialled in a six-year-old patient with a lung condition that requires repeat ‘lung-washing’ treatments in order to clear dangerous build-ups of material.

During the procedure one lung is ventilated while the other lung is washed out although the tubes used in the treatment are large and sometimes difficult to use in children.

After CT scanning the patient, the team 3D printed a ‘made-to-measure’ tube that was an exact replica of the patient’s trachea in terms of shape and size.

This allowed the anaesthetic team to match up the most appropriately sized tubes and practice their insertion in to the airways prior to surgery.

Colin Wallis, respiratory consultant physician at GOSH and co-author, said: “Each time a child comes in to have their procedure they will have grown and so require different equipment to be used for their treatment.

“A model that is tailor-made to the child each time they have treatment means that the right sized tubes can be identified prior to surgery and a child can potentially be under anaesthetic for a shorter period of time.”

Owen Arthurs, GOSH consultant radiologist and study organiser, who scans patients to gain exact sizes for the model, explains: “This work demonstrates that it is possible to create precise anatomical models of complex organs cheaply and in a very short space of time from standard CT scans and a 3D printer.

“In the future, 3D printing could feasibly be adapted to scan and create many more organs in the body making a larger number of surgical procedures safer, quicker and easier.”