A brand new human life may just have been saved thanks to the combined technologies of MRI and 3D printing. Dr. Emile Bacha, a surgeon at Morgan Stanley Hospital in Manhattan, used a novel technique to operate on a two-week-old baby with congenital heart defects (CHD). Ordinarily, surgery to repair complicated heart deformations would require opening up the patient’s chest and stopping the heart just to study the defects of that specific heart before they can even begin repairing it.

Each heart with CHD has its own set of holes, and with non-invasive imaging techniques it’s difficult to map out exactly what will need to be fixed during surgery. Dr. Bacha and his team took MRI images of the baby’s heart and used them to create a 3D map of the organ. They then studied it in detail and practiced on the 3D printed replica. They knew exactly what to do before they even began the operation.

Dr. Bacha described the 3D printed heart as a “road map” repairing the maze that was the abnormal heart. Rather than opening up the chest to study the heart and then later performing a second operation to repair it, they were able to accomplish the life-saving surgery in just one operation. This type of achievement is just one example of how 3D printing is already changing the world. For the tiny patient’s family, the ready availability of 3D printing technology literally changed their lives forever.

The post 3D Printed Heart Model Saved the Life of 2-Week-Old Baby first appeared on Gajitz.

Clearing clogged arteries usually involves complicated and dangerous surgery. Even looking at the arteries involves complex cross-sectional ultrasounds which only allow a view from outside of the arteries. Thanks to a team at the Georgia Institute of Technology, this tiny probe could give a clearer look at clogged arteries by actually going inside them. A single computer chip measuring just 1.4 millimeters wide holds over a hundred elements that transmit data to doctors via 13 minuscule cables.

The device will be guided through arteries by the attached cables which transmit images at a rate of 60 frames per second. According to one of the researchers on the project, the probe is the equivalent of a flashlight, allowing a much clearer view of blocked arteries than has ever before been possible. The ability to get a closer look at blockages can reduce the amount of surgeries needed to unblock arteries.

When the sensors on the probe are not needed, they shut down to save power. This lets the device use less power and therefore generate less heat when it’s inside the heart. The researchers plan to conduct animal trials to test the device’s possible applications. If the trials go well, human testing and FDA approval won’t be far behind. Future heart patients could very well have fewer surgeries to endure.

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