Use of 3D Printing at WMU Helps Borgess Cardiologist Plug Holes in the Heart

Atrial Septal Defect (ASD) is a defect of the heart where there is a hole in the divider wall between the two upper chambers of the heart, or atria. This is a structural defect of the heart that is considered a birth defect or congenital defect. The hole or the opening allows the freshly oxygenated blood that returns to the heart from the lung to mix with deoxygenated blood returning to the heart after circulating through the body.  The condition can damage the heart and lung due to excessive volume of blood circulating through the two organs, causing significant cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases. Surgical procedures may be conducted to repair the defect. An alternative approach to the open-heart surgery is through a procedure called cardiac catheterization in which a small tube with a plug device is inserted into the blood vessels and delivered to the heart to close the hole. Such a transcatheter procedure requires only a tiny incision and provides faster recovery in most cases. Cardiologists guide the delivery of the plug device using medical imaging. However, this can be quite challenging as the hole can be of different shapes and sizes and it is quite difficult to visualize other structures that the plug might compromise due to its proximity to the hole. 

  

To enhance patient care in transcatheter ASD repair procedure, Dr. Vishal Gupta, an expert interventional cardiologist and the Medical Director of the Catheterization Laboratory at Borgess Medical Center uses advanced additive manufacturing technology.  In a collaborative effort, Dr. William Liou from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Western Michigan University, then transfers the patient’s heart images to a 3D printed model. Gupta uses this 3D printed patient’s heart model pre-procedure to plan the repair of the hole that best fits the patient’s own anatomy, a precision medicine approach. “This is groundbreaking and quite revolutionary because we have such complex procedures -- where making a 3D model can help us not only pre-plan the procedure but even practice an operation before it is done,” Gupta said.  “This gave me that confidence and it gave me the surety that the device is going to be placed accurately where we want it to be placed.”  Liou added, “3D printing technologies have uprooted engineering fields from prototyping to making functional parts on airplane engines and on spacecraft in space exploration. We are only beginning to unlock its potentials in applications like medicine.” 

 

In addition, Liou also applied the methodologies that support the 3D printing of the heart to the development of medical engineering computational simulations. By using the anatomies derived from medical images of patients, Liou’s Computational Engineering Physics Lab is working on research to help gain a better understanding of the hemodynamics and biomechanics of the human heart and human brain.