All articles Manufacturing Medical Software

Medical 3D Printing - The Heart of the Matter in Cardiology

Sandrine Debecker
March 31, 2016
Medical 3D Printing - The Heart of the Matter in Cardiology

Interview with Werner Budts, MD, PhD - Cardiologist at University Hospitals Leuven, Belgium Prof. Werner Budts can be considered one of the primary advocates on the implementation of 3D Printing in cardiology. For quite some time, he has been turning his digital image data into printable 3D models, using his own desktop 3D printer. The Materialise team visited him to discuss his vision about Medical 3D Printing in hospitals.

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Supporting a Minimally Invasive Pancoast Tumor Resection

Liesbeth Kemel
March 30, 2016
Supporting a Minimally Invasive Pancoast Tumor Resection

Michael Slag was suffering from a growing Pancoast tumor, a rare type of lung cancer. As it intertwined with several critical nerves and blood vessels, surgical tumor resection was complicated as the functioning of his arm could be damaged. To reduce this risk and keep the intervention minimally-invasive, the surgical team at Mayo Clinic used Materialise Mimics software to convert the MRI and CT scans to a 3D-printable model of the tumor and the surrounding tissue and ribs. On the model they could observe exactly how the tumor was wrapped around several of Michael’s critical nerves and blood vessels.

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Novel Insights About Dissecting Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms in Mice

Alex M
March 29, 2016
Novel Insights About Dissecting Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms in Mice

Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms (AAA) occur in 5 to 9% of the population over the age of 65 years and transmural aneurysm rupture is the 10th most common cause of death in the industrialized world. Dr. Bram Trachet, post-doctoral researcher at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, explores novel high-resolution imaging techniques as well as image-guided histology to visualize experimental aneurysms in laboratory animals. In 2015, he won a Mimics Innovation Award for his research on the morphology of abdominal aortic aneurysms in mice infused with angiotensin II. The essence of his paper will be presented in this blog post.

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Mimics Innovation Award Winner Uses 3D Modeling to Increase Car Safety

Stephanie Benoit
March 25, 2016
Mimics Innovation Award Winner Uses 3D Modeling to Increase Car Safety

As the winner of the first prize for the “Best Article Award: North & South America” of the Mimics Innovation Awards in 2015, Dr. Jingwen Hu’s paper has the potential to contribute significantly to automobile safety.

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Shedding a New Light on the Origin of Brain Folds

Liesbeth Kemel
March 24, 2016
Shedding a New Light on the Origin of Brain Folds

A research team led by Tuomas Tallinen (Department of Physics and Nanoscience Center, University of Jyvaskyla), Jun Young Chung and Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan (Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University) is studying the folded structure of the human brain. Their findings published in Nature Physics indicate that the convoluted structure can be attributed to mechanical compression. A 3D-printed model was used by the researchers to support their theory.

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FDA Clearance for 3D-Printed Titanium Cranial/Craniofacial Implants

Liesbeth Kemel
March 21, 2016
FDA Clearance for 3D-Printed Titanium Cranial/Craniofacial Implants

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given a 510(k) clearance to a 3D-printed titanium cranial/craniofacial implant manufactured by US- and Brazil-based company BioArchitects. This important news marks the start of the company’s marketing for the device in the US.

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6 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Implementing 3D Printing in Your Hospital (part 3)

Todd Pietila
March 18, 2016
6 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Implementing 3D Printing in Your Hospital (part 3)

As we saw in parts one and two of this series, 3D Printing has enormous potential for hospitals, but it requires software tools and know-how. In this final chapter, we discuss the hardware options, as well as the need for an efficient communications process.

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First Renal Artery Aneurysm Surgery Planned Using a 3D-Printed Model

Alex M
March 15, 2016
First Renal Artery Aneurysm Surgery Planned Using a 3D-Printed Model

37-year-old Sneha Cipriano discovered she had a large renal artery aneurysm located near the back of her right kidney. This type of aneurysm is extremely rare and is usually found in young women who have had multiple pregnancies. As large aneurysms are more in danger of rupturing, and as a ruptured aneurysm can be life-threatening, it was important to repair it with a surgical graft as soon as possible. However, the position of the aneurysm on the split of the renal artery meant that operating on it with minimal risk would be quite difficult.

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Lessons from Our Latest Webinar: Solutions for Complex Hip Surgery

Anna Young
March 14, 2016
Lessons from Our Latest Webinar: Solutions for Complex Hip Surgery

Both surgical planning and medical 3D Printing are providing surgeons with more options for the surgical treatment of hip patients. With complex hip revision surgery in mind, we recently organized a webinar to present the range of planning and patient-specific surgical solutions offered by Materialise. These include X-ray based planning, 3D-printed anatomical models, and patient-specific surgical guides and implants. We also refer to this as the Materialise Hip Continuum.

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6 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Getting Started with 3D Printing in Your Hospital (part 2)

Todd Pietila
March 04, 2016
6 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Getting Started with 3D Printing in Your Hospital (part 2)

As we saw in the first part of this series, there are several considerations to take into account before implementing  3D Printing in your hospital. In this post we will discuss in further detail how you can create an accurate file for 3D Printing. We’ve already covered image processing so here are three more potential problems that you might face, along with the strategies to overcome them.

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