By Kristen Fischer, DOTmed News

Neurosurgeons are embracing 3-D printers that spit out 3-D models based on CT scans to help them find defects not discoverable in traditional images. But now there's a new technology that makes it quicker and cheaper to complete the process.

Over the weekend, an exhibit at the American Roentgen Ray Society's 2011 annual meeting in Chicago showed how 3-D printing technology has become a more affordable way to plan surgical treatments and identify bodies.
The exhibit demonstrated how a Zcorp Z510 printer, which creates fully 3-D models from scans, could be helpful in planning tricky surgeries, such as repairing skull defects in infants or inserting pedicle screws in the spine.

The team also said that the 3-D models made identifying the human remains of service members more efficient.

"The lab wanted to make some models as copies of remains of unidentified service members so they could continue their work to try to identify remains rather than repeatedly handling the specimens," said Dr. Lynne Ruess, a pediatric radiologist at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Ohio. She said they had been sending data from Hawaii to the mainland using a different method that was more costly and slower to process.


"We wanted to try to use cheaper, local technology to achieve the same result," Ruess said. She said other radiologists can utilize the same 3-D printers architects use to make similar models.

Dr. Ricardo Burgos, an Army radiologist at Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii, along with Ruess, mentored Michelle Yoshida, a student at Fairfield University in Connecticut, who conducted research to complete the project.

Generating the models

To create the models, CT scan data was stored on a disk and given to Audrey Meehan, who works at the Central Identification Laboratory at Hickam AFB in Hawaii. She loaded the data into a computer and converted it using Mimics Z 1.0 by Materialise, then sent it to the Zcorp printer.

"[The printer is] much like an ink jet printer," Ruess explained. "But this prints using layering of many, many very thin layers of particles and a 'glue' to make the model."

The excess powder was then brushed off by hand and the models are sealed, Ruess added. Cyanoacrylate, a hardening agent, is then applied and the models are dried with forced hot air. Each model costs about $250 to produce and took about 24 hours to make. The printer itself costs around $40,000, according to materials presented at the exhibit.

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