A transplant surgeon from Belfast City Hospital is to share his story of how he used 3D printing technology to perform a kidney transplant on a young mother at this year’s South by Southwest conference (SXSW) in Austin, Texas.
Dr Tim Brown, consultant transplant surgeon, will tell the story of a patient who required a life-saving kidney; her father who was willing to donate but had a tumour on his kidney; and the technology behind making the transplant possible.
Dr. Brown is joined on 12th March by Daniel Crawford, CEO of axial3D, the firm that created the 3D model, Cathy Coomber, operations manager at axial3D, and Nigel McAlpine, immersive technology lead at Digital Catapult who will share their experience on how the operation was made possible.
Speaking on how the 3D printed model aided the surgery, Dr. Brown said: “As the cyst was buried deep within the renal cortex and therefore invisible on the back bench, a replica 3D model was used for preoperative planning and intra-operative localisation of the lesion. It’s difficult to underestimate how valuable this strategy was in terms of preoperative planning and achieving successful clearance of the lesion.”