Adaenelie Gonzalez was born with a complex heart anomaly. By the time she was 4 years old, she had had two open-heartsurgeries. Unfortunately, her condition was only temporarily relieved by these major operations. The blood from Adaenelie’s heart doesn’t flow correctly from her heart to her lungs. Everyone has four veins that bring blood to your left atrium. In Adaenelie’s case, the veins do not attach to the left atrium, like they would normally.Instead, the blood is brought to different areas of the heart, causing heart failure and pulmonary difficulties.
In the medical community, cardiac surgeons are now turning to a process that involves modeling theproblem areas of theheart with CT scan data in pre-surgery testing. As a result, they are able to create very detailed models from the CT data and turn them into highly accurate digital and physical models.
Using the CT data, the 3D models took anywhere from 2-10 hoursto design. The subsequent files were then sent to AdvancedRP, an Atlanta-based company, which printed the model in 24 hours.Dr. Nancy Dobrolet, pediatric cardiologist at Miami Children’s Hospital, commented on the situation, saying,“We were running out of options as she had already had a couple of surgeries in the newborn period. It became clear that to prolong her life … she needed to have another procedure done.” Chief of cardiovascular surgery at Miami Children’s Hospital, Dr. Redmond Burke, added that he was grateful for the visual representations because he “couldn’t picture,” how the operation would look otherwise.
Thanks to the surgery, Aedaenelie is now in recover, but she is already walking around and playing a bit. Since the success of their modeling, the hospital has purchased one industrial 3D printer and 3D modeling software, spending $150,000. Now, they are waiting for the printer to arrive. Dr. Burke added that another benefit to having the printer and these 3D printed models and software would be their utility in teaching others about rare conditions such as Adaenelie’s. He said, “I didn’t know if it would work. But I thought at least we have a chance and it’s worth it for me to put her through the massive trauma of a third open-heart surgery. I was able to teach fellows and students what we did using an actual model of her heart. It’s invaluable.”
