Chennai-based Frontier Lifeline Hospital used 3D model for the first time to study a complex congenital heart disease of a two-year-old boy from Bahrain before performing the surgery.

Raghavan Subramanyan, chief of cardiology who performed the surgery on the child, said, “With 3D modelling we were able to study the complexity of the boy’s heart and devise corrective action without wasting time before actually performing the surgery.”

Subramanyan said 3D printing and modelling of human organs has huge potential as, apart from gaining insights, the surgeons can practise on the prototype before operating on the patients.

The 3-D model, made of plaster of Paris, was developed using the child’s CT scan images, which were outsourced to a Canadian company for ₹49,000. The technology is nascent in the country as it is expensive costing about ₹1.5 crore for the installation of a single machine and another ₹7 crore for setting up the infrastructure to model the organ.

KM Cherian, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Frontier Lifeline Hospital said to perform a corrective surgery, it is necessary to understand the patient’s heart condition. Though CT and MRI scans give an idea as to where the issue lies, they don’t really show what is inside the organ. “This is where 3-D modelling comes into the picture,” he said.

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