Such breakthroughs are particularly valuable in pediatric surgery when there are few alternative options for hands-on training.
"Airway reconstruction for specialized cases is a technically demanding procedure that often involves carving cartilage to support and expand a reconstructed trachea," says Zopf, who has helped develop high fidelity models for ear reconstruction, cleft lip, and mandible surgery.
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"Currently, a surgeon in training has scarce opportunity to carve cartilage graft for this type of procedure. We want to see if 3-D printing can accelerate and enhance surgical training."
Eighteen surgical trainees in a U-M otolaryngology head and neck surgery dissection course, including Zhao, participated in the exercise last year. They practiced carving on a 3-D printed model of a harvested human cartilage graft created through a CT scan of a pediatric patient's rib. The mold was filled with cornstarch and silicone to give it the real feeling and texture of cartilage.
Most participants said the exercise was a very relevant training tool and that the replicas also were useful in demonstrating their skills to teachers.
Zhao says the experience may bolster medical training, especially for doctors-to-be like herself who plan to specialize in pediatric otolaryngology treating children with airway disorders.
"You only get one chance to carve a harvested graft from a patient's rib, so you have to do it perfectly the first time," she says. "It takes years of practice to learn the technical skills to do it. This was a very realistic experience and what's great is you can keep printing dozens of these models at a time so you can practice over and over again."
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