Materialise : Catheter Training with Pulsating 3D-Printed Hearts

From rough model to beating artificial heart

The path to pulsatile pediatric heart models was achieved through several generations of models. For the very first 3D-printed training models, the hospital team first assembled silicone tubes and plates to create a three-dimensional simplified representation of the heart with its main structures. "We used computed tomography to generate a 2D image stack of this assembly and then reconstructed a 3D-printable model from it," said Carina Hopfner, the engineer in charge of 3D printing at LMU Klinikum. "To convert the image data into a 3D model, we used Materialise's Mimics Innovation Suite, which allowed us to virtually complete the replica. Among other things, we used it to scale, smooth, and close surface defects," Carina continued. Finally, the simplified heart model was additively manufactured in one piece from a flexible, silicone-based tissue-like material.