Value of 3D Printing for Comprehension of Liver Surgical Anatomy

Guangzhou Women and Children's Medical Center

Status: Completed

Conditions: Liver Cancer

Treatments: Other: surgical residents' comprehension of the hepatic anatomy

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03153332

3D printing

Details and patient eligibility

About

To our knowledge, it has not been analyze whether 3D printed liver model would improve the perception of a given liver tumor or the precision of operation planning in liver surgery. We design this prospective controlled trial to test whether the 3D-printed patient specific liver model could be more informative than standard MDCT (multi-row detector computed tomography ) and 3D visualization system in predicting the surgical anatomy of liver.

Full description

The primary objective was to investigate whether 3D printing can improve localization of hepatic pathology. The secondary objective was to investigate whether 3D printing can improve the precision of surgical proposal.

The dataset of patients were prepared and stratified into MDCT, 3D visualization system and 3D printed liver model groups. The process started from MDCT scan image acquisition and moved through image segmentation and 3D rendering to end up with 3D printing.

Surgical residents were assigned to three different groups to study different modes of patients' data. Residents were ask to state the liver segment in which the tumor resides and make a minimal resection proposal, including the tumor, the safety margin (1cm) and the dependent liver tissue. Residents were recommended to proceed in a classic way by resecting the whole liver segment. The time spent by each resident was also recorded in order to assess the quickness of comprehension and information transfer of the three different modes of presentation.

Enrollment: 59 patients

Sex: All

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Surgical residents
• Must had experiences with MDCT and 3D visualization system

Exclusion criteria

• Non surgical residents
• No experiences with MDCT or 3D visualization system

Trial design

59 participants in 3 patient groups

MDCT group

Description:

The MDCT images of seven hepatic tumors were loaded on software to uniform study conditions, allowing both axial and coronal scans visualization.

Treatment:

Other: surgical residents' comprehension of the hepatic anatomy

3D visualization system group

Description:

The 3D virtual reconstructions of seven hepatic tumors were loaded on the visualization software which enables the rotation of the virtual model.

Treatment:

Other: surgical residents' comprehension of the hepatic anatomy

3D printing group

Description:

3D-printed models of seven hepatic tumors were created based on MDCT images, participants were allowed to freely handle them.

Treatment:

Other: surgical residents' comprehension of the hepatic anatomy