14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier, I wrote about how cancer had become the latest breakthrough in 3D printing technology. Now, it seems I already have a follow-up.
And by follow-up, I mean that a team of surgeons took it upon themselves to have a 3D printed cancerous organ made.
Specifically, they 3D printed a cancerous kidney. So at least they're not trying to actually recreate the disease itself.
In the picture above, you'll see the kidney itself. The surgeons from Japan announced it yesterday at the European Association of Urology congress in Stockholm. They modeled it after a CT scan of a patient's kidney.
The purpose was to give the doctors about to undertake the surgery the occasion to practice before actually cutting the person up.
Normally, blood flow to the kidney can be interrupted for about 22 minutes when removing a tumor. Having the chance to practice beforehand, though, reduces the time to 8 minutes or so, leading to much lower chances of complications down the line, like renal failure after the surgery is over and done with.
It's definitely a great thing that CT scans can actually be used for more than staring at them for hours. By turning them into 3D models and, afterwards, into actual, physical objects, they let doctors feel their way through their task instead of having to mentally map it and hope for the best.