3D Printed Surgical Guide for Coronary Artery Bypass Graft: Workflow from Computed Tomography to Prototype

Abstract

Patient-specific three-dimensional (3D) printed models have been increasingly used in many medical fields, including cardiac surgery for which they are used as planning and communication tools. To locate and plan the correct region of interest for the bypass placement during coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery, cardiac surgeons can pre-operatively rely on different medical images. This article aims to present a workflow for the production of a patient-specific 3D-printed surgical guide, from data acquisition and image segmentation to final prototyping. The aim of this surgical guide is to help visualize the region of interest for bypass placement during the operation, through the use of dedicated surgical holes. The results showed the feasibility of this surgical guide in terms of design and fitting to the phantom. Further studies are needed to assess material biocompatibility and technical properties.

Keywords

• 3D printing
• pre-operative planning
• image processing
• segmentation