Overview
3D printing is making a real impact on head and neck cancer. At Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, 3D printing is used in many ways—from preparing for individual patient surgeries by getting familiar with the patient’s specific anatomy prior to surgery, to using the 3D model as a communication tool with patients to ensure proper education and patient consent. Learn more about how 3D models are helping enhance the head and neck cancer treatment we provide.
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JONATHAN MORRIS: There's really no hospital system that has built as much infrastructure around 3D printing as Mayo has. We've done a lot of studies in the field of head and neck cancer and 3D printing and how they're complementary. Some of those complementary studies just show better understanding of the patient's specific anatomy before entering the operating room.
Patient-specific virtual surgical planning and cutting guides can save up to two hours in the operative room, which means less time for a patient under anesthesia and we get a better outcome because of all the design ahead of time. We have developed a specialty called point of care manufacturing. All the manufacturing as the physicians inside the hospital, so there's no translation needed. We go from CT scan to a three-dimensional model of complex cancer in every area of the body, but particularly in head and neck, quite seamlessly.
We're combining surgery, biomedical engineering, and radiology all in one place to create not just the 3D printed models but also the virtual surgical planning. We take the imaging with the patient's anatomy and tumor and vascularity and then we print those out in a life-sized three-dimensional way and give them to the surgeon as kind of a roadmap.
DANIEL PRICE: We're all used to looking at two-dimensional images of patients and CT scans and MRIs, and 3D modeling takes that 2D image and turns it into something that you can hold in your hands and really understand what's the patient's anatomy. Having guides that are custom fit to their jaw, to their bone, that were taking from another part of their body to reconstruct them so that we can get perfect bone to bone contact and make them look as much like they did prior to ever having a cancer diagnosis.
We really have to get it perfect the first time, and we have the opportunity to practice, plan, and make it perfect on a computer before we ever get to the operating room. We've found that patient had less complications long term when we use 3D modeling. They were less likely to have a plate break and they were less likely to have that bone fracture of non-union when we use 3D modeling.
JONATHAN MORRIS: Another advantage is patient consent. When you let the patient hold their own skull or their own mandible or their own tumor in their hands, then you can start using the model as a communication vehicle. Mayo Clinic is an integrated multidisciplinary team. So instead of just surgeon and neuroradiologist meeting to discuss cases, now we have surgeon, neuroradiologist, biomedical engineers, and 3D printing capabilities all in the same care team.
DANIEL PRICE: We excel at complex patient care, and I think that's where our efficiency and the expertise of all of our colleagues to take care of those complex patients really comes into play.
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