Perioperative Echocardiography Training: A Role for Ultra-high
Resolution Three-dimensional Printed Human Heart Models
Abstract
Echocardiography is essential for diagnosing and assessing the severity
of perioperative structural and/or functional heart disease. Yet,
educational opportunities to better understand echocardiography-based
cardiac anatomy remain limited by the two-dimensional display, lack of
anatomic details, variability of heart models, and/or costs and global
availability of training. 3D printing using data from patient CT or MRI
datasets has been used for creating effective teaching materials,
although often it is limited by the resolutions. In this report, we
discuss the development of ultra-high resolution 3D printed human hearts
using ex vivo microcomputed tomography (μCT) and describe its
utility for teaching both basic and advanced recommended views by the
American Society of Echocardiography.