Cardiac 3D printing for better understanding of congenital heart disease

Surgical planning for complex congenital heart disease (CHD) is challenging due to the broad spectrum of conditions and high variability between individuals. In simple forms of heart defect, traditional two-dimensional echocardiography remains sufficient to plan surgery. In contrast, complex forms often involve several. abnormalities of the heart and great arteries that make interpretation of the spatial relationship from sequential two-dimensional cuts very difficult. In most such cases we need another image modality to better understand the complex anatomy, such as cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR), computed tomography (CT), or three-dimensional (3D) echocardiography. All of these imaging modalities can provide a 3D image, which permits better understand of the relationship of the anatomical structures of the heart. However, visualization of conventional 3D imaging techniques is limited by presentation on a flat screen and can hamper full understanding of a complex cardiac anatomy [1].