Leading the charge in 3D printing
The VA 3D-printed a model kidney with a tumor to educate the patient and help with presurgical planning. (Image from U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs)
Clinicians and leaders at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs had the foresight several years ago to imagine the impact that 3D printing could have on veterans’ lives. What started with standard-3D printed prosthetics for amputees continues to evolve.
VA staff are now printing 3D models of patients’ organs, vessels, joints and spines based on radiologic images to help surgeons plan procedures and help patients and their families to understand what’s happening inside their bodies and how the operations will work.
A veteran who developed a tumor on his kidney described a standard image of it as “a bunch of black and white gobbledygook,” according to Dr. Beth Ripley, a radiologist at VA Puget Sound Health System and chair of the Veterans Health Administration 3D printing advisory committee. A 3D-printed model helped the veteran understand his condition and the surgeon to plan the procedure to remove the tumor without having to interrupt surgery several times to look at images.
Another veteran needed surgical repair of an aortic aneurysm, but the hospital staff in Cleveland was new to 3D printing and didn’t know how to translate the images into a 3D model. Ripley did the computational work (known as data segmentation) that enabled the Cleveland hospital staff to print the model, which helped the surgeon change the treatment plan to the benefit of the patient, Ripley said.
The VA began working with Stratasys in 2017 to deploy 3D printers in five of the agency’s hospitals. Now, 23 of the approximately 110 U.S. hospitals with 3D printers are VA facilities. Veterans who don’t live near or can’t travel to one of those 23 VA hospitals can also benefit from the technology. An Alaska veteran who appeared to need complex surgery was able to avoid multiple trips to Seattle and what would have been a dangerous procedure, thanks to the Seattle VA staff’s ability to 3D-print a surgical model of the veteran’s anatomy based on images sent from Alaska.
“That’s what we’re really trying to share across the network,” Ripley told Medical Design & Outsourcing.
She believes the agency will pave the way for the private sector to unlock the 3D printing’s potential for the health and wellbeing of the general public.
“It’s truly amazing,” Ripley said. “VA is really leading in this field.”
