14 DAY TRIAL // Heart surgeries carry a very high degree of risk, needless to say, which is why 3D printed models of the blood pump can be so useful: they allow surgeons to plan operations and even do practice runs if the model is made from flexible enough materials.
There are many diseases that a heart can suffer from, as horrifying as it sounds. Examples include vascular deformities or degradation, congenital heart diseases, ruptured muscle (from cardiac arrest).
By taking a CT scan of the heart, it is possible to build a 3D model of the organ. From that, Materialise has made it a habit of building 3D printing models and even has a whole catalog to show.
You can browse the catalog, called HeartPrint, at your leisure on the company's website. You can see the differences between the hearts of an 80-year-old female suffering from atrial fibrillation, an 87-year-old man who went through a stroke, and, let's say, a 56-year-old male who suffered intracranial bleeding. There are valve models as well, plus vascular ones.
It really puts into perspective how far 3D printing technology can go in helping advance humankind's ability to stay alive. It's just a small step from this to making 3D printed models of your insides just for the strangeness of it. Maybe even ask your doctor to let you take yours home as a morbid souvenir.
All that remains is to see how quickly surgeons from around the world begin using Materialise's Heartprint in their activities. Probably very quickly indeed.