Three-dimensional printing of a liver model for surgical planning in adult-to-adult living donor liver transplantation

Abstract

The last ten years, thanks to the great advances in technology, three-dimensional (3D) printing has become an accessible, useful, and innovative tool for different areas of medicine. These include surgical planning, implant and prosthetic creation, medical education, and even doctor-patient communication. Regarding surgical planning, 3D printing takes on special relevance in highly complex surgeries. In the case of living donor liver transplantation where it is a priority to guarantee maximum safety for the donor, as well as the best quality of the graft for the recipient, surgical planning is mandatory. Regarding this, 3D printing of an anatomically comparable liver model of the donor, gives the surgeon the possibility of obtaining a clearer, more direct, and tangible image, from any angle of the organ, than a traditional virtual image. In this manner, the surgeon has an additional tool to plan the best surgical approach, anticipate anatomical variations and even, when the impression material allows it, to practice the procedure. Transplant center of Clinica las Condes, together with Innovation laboratory worked together on the 3D printing process liver models used for surgical planning of the first two liver transplants with an adult-adult laparoscopic living donor. The objective of this work is to describe the 3D printing process and analyze the difficulties and benefits of the process and its results.