3D Printed Brain Regions Help Neurosurgeons Prepare for Difficult Procedures While neurosurgeons have been able to virtually navigate volumetric images of patients™ brain structures gathered from CT and MRI scans, difficult procedures within complex anatomy still remains challenging. At Boston Children Hospital, physicians are now using 3D-printed replicas of brain regions they™ll be working on to practice with before actual surgery.

The researchers studying how the new capability may help in neurosurgery have focused on pediatric patients with cerebrovascular malformations requiring surgical or radiological intervention. They used high resolution scans to recreate the patients™ malformed blood vessels and nearby anatomy using 3D printed resin. They then used them to train on in preparation to the surgeries and also compared the models to the anatomy they were copied from, showing that they nearly exactly matched in all the measurements.

Most importantly, the four children in the study successfully underwent the procedures which were on average 30 minutes (12 percent) shorter than the kids in the control group.