Accuracy evaluation of patient-specific 3D-printed aortic anatomy

INTRODUCTION: 3D printing has a wide range of applications in medicine. In surgery, this technique can be used for preoperative planning of complex procedures, production of patient specific implants, as well as training. However, accuracy evaluations of 3D vascular models are rare.

OBJECTIVES: Aim of this study was to investigate the accuracy of patient-specific 3D-printed aortic anatomies.

METHODS: Patients suffering from aorto-iliac aneurysms and with indication for treatment were selected on the basis of different anatomy and localization of the aneurysm in the period from January 1st 2014 to May 27th 2016. Six patients with aorto-iliac aneurysms were selected out of the database for 3D-printing. Subsequently, computed tomography (CT) images of the printed 3D-models were compared with the original CT data sets.

RESULTS: The mean deviation of the six 3D-vascular models ranged between -0.73 mm and 0.14 mm compared to the original CT-data. The relative deviation of the measured values showed no significant difference between the 3D-vascular and the original patient CT-data.

CONCLUSION: Our results showed that 3D printing has the potential to produce patient-specific 3D vascular models with reliable accuracy. This enables the use of such models for the development of new endovascular procedures and devices.