title: Making three-dimensional echocardiography more tangible: a workflow for three-dimensional printing with echocardiographic data.
abstract: Three-dimensional (3D) printing is a rapidly evolving technology with several potential applications in the diagnosis and management of cardiac disease. Recently, 3D printing (i.e. rapid prototyping) derived from 3D transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) has become possible. Due to the multiple steps involved and the specific equipment required for each step, it might be difficult to start implementing echocardiography-derived 3D printing in a clinical setting. In this review, we provide an overview of this process, including its logistics and organization of tools and materials, 3D TEE image acquisition strategies, data export, format conversion, segmentation, and printing. Generation of patient-specific models of cardiac anatomy from echocardiographic data is a feasible, practical application of 3D printing technology.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesia and Pain Management, Toronto General Hospital, University Health Network, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.|Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
authors.forename: Azad
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mashari
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
authors.forename: Mario
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Montealegre-Gallegos
authors.affiliation: Division of Cardiac Surgery, Department of Surgery, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
authors.forename: Ziyad
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Knio
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.|Department of Anesthesiology, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Lu
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yeh
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
authors.forename: Jelliffe
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jeganathan
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
authors.forename: Robina
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Matyal
authors.affiliation: Division of Cardiac Surgery, Department of Surgery, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
authors.forename: Kamal R
authors.initials: KR
authors.lastname: Khabbaz
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
authors.forename: Feroze
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Mahmood
keywords: 3D printing; patient-specific models; rapid prototyping; transesophageal echocardiography