Scientists are making custom 3D-printed replicas of human hearts in an effort to improve replacement valve procedures, according to a study that holds promise to optimize the life-saving technology used in thousands of patients annually.
(Bloomberg) — Scientists are making custom 3D-printed replicas of human hearts in an effort to improve replacement valve procedures, according to a study that holds promise to optimize the life-saving technology used in thousands of patients annually.
Using scans from 15 patients with aortic stenosis, a narrowing of heart valves that impedes blood flow, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Cleveland Clinic and other institutions developed a system that mimics blood flow and pressure in individual diseased hearts, suggesting a way to predict the effects of various replacements and select the best fit, avoiding potential leakage and failure.
The approach could have an impact on prosthetic heart valves with a global market worth almost $7 billion in 2021 and expected to reach $20 billion by 2031 amid an expansion in the older population, according to the study. While most replacement valves are currently designed to mimic those in healthy hearts, the challenge lies in selecting one that fits well in hearts impacted by disease, said Luca Rosalia, a graduate student in the MIT-Harvard Program in Health Sciences and Technology who helped write the study.
“There are massive variations” among hearts, he said in a statement, “especially when patients are sick. The advantage of our system is that we can recreate not just the form of a patient’s heart, but also its function in both physiology and disease.”
Video: Making a 3-D Printed Heart
About 80,000 to 85,000 aortic valve replacements are performed in the US each year, according to the authors, and medical images are used currently to choose valves for implantation. If the selected valve isn’t the right size, it can move out of position, with disastrous effects.
“Valve migration is probably the worst, because you have something inside your heart,” Rosalia said in an interview. “That’s extremely dangerous. You would need another surgery to get that removed.”
Leaking valves can also present patients with serious problems, said Ellen Roche, an associate professor at MIT in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Institute for Medical Engineering and Science who also helped write the study, potentially allowing blood to flow backward in the heart, which can lead to abnormal heart rhythms and other serious consequences.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.