3D Printing at Austin Health

Guest post by: Jasamine Coles-Black

Hello everyone! I’m Jas, a final year medical student at Austin Health, and one of Dr Louise van der Werff’s 3D Slicer padawans. I can’t believe it’s been 8 months since I was first introduced to the software, via The Research Bazaar’s 3D Slicer Alpha Workshop.

As my background is purely clinical, the first few months were a steep learning curve indeed! Since then, ResBaz has helped me gain the necessary skills to segment DICOM datasets, perform basic modifications in CAD, and 3D print the resultant models. It’s a course that I highly recommend, and I have my eye on other fabulous ResBaz CAD courses, such as Autodesk Inventor, TinkerCAD and Fusion360.

Me as a 3D Slicer virgin, at the 3D Slicer Alpha Course last July.

One of the first tasks I undertook with my newfound segmentation skills was to develop a workflow to create 3D printed aortas from patient CT scans. This involved taking advantage of contrast enhanced CT angiograms. The highly dense contrast circulating the body lights up the vessels of interest like a Christmas tree, as you can see below. This allows me to apply the FastMarch algorithm to quickly and easily isolate the anatomy of interest. With help from Louise, hollow aortic models have also been created

Right: A 3D printed hollow aorta, fresh from our 3D Printing Lab. Left: Segmentation of an aorta using the FastMarch algorithm.

These models will be used to educate trainee surgeons at The University of Melbourne’s Graduate Diploma in Surgical Anatomy about the intricacies of abdominal aortic anatomy, which is difficult to visualise on cadaveric material. This will be undertaken by Professor Chris Briggs, Dr Tarinee Kucchal and Matthew Pappas. 3D printed models of abdominal aortic aneurysms, or triple A’s as we like to call them (abbreviations are half of medicine!), will also be used by Tony Kao to educate patients at the Austin about their disease.

Abdominal aortic aneurysm model generated in 3D Slicer, with and without the surrounding mural thrombus.

Other projects currently under works at Austin Health include the segmentation and printing of patient-specific liver and kidney models to aid surgical planning, the printing of lumbar and thoracic vertebrae as well as flexible trachea models to aid with anaesthetic training. Below is an example of a hollow, 3D printed trachea developed from a patient’s CT scan at Austin Health’s 3D Printing Lab.

A hollow trachea prototype, created in our 3D Printing Lab.

Our efforts have been part of the #3DMed initiative, founded by Dr Paul Mignone of Research Platforms, and Mr Jason Chuen, a vascular surgeon, in 2015. Since then, our two Makerbot Replicator 2X’s have been getting a workout at Austin Health; one resides in our 3D Printing Lab, the other is at the Austin Library and is available for staff use 24/7.

If there is a clinical problem you think 3D printing will be able to help you with, don’t hesitate to contact us at Austin Health. I can be reached at: jahuang@student.unimelb.edu.au.

Last but not least, watch this space for an announcement of this year’s inaugural #3DMed Seminar!