Gadgetory

errors can be fatal in an operating room for decades diagnosis and surgical plans have been made based on 2d x-rays and MRI scans requiring doctors to rely on instinct during surgical procedures when 18 month old Gabriel started having hundreds of micro seizures called mind erasers everyday surgeons at Boston Children's Hospital piloted a revolutionary technique to save his brain Gabriel is 18 months old and he was born in January 28th of 2013 and he had a major stroke at birth and actually almost died in Boston Children's Hospital saved him and about five months later he developed these horrible seizures called infantile spasms they call them mind erasers actually because many children who end up with these spasms forget everything that they've already learned the scariest part about it was that we were warned that he could maybe forget us so every day we would go into his crib and be like please don't let this be the day that he forgets who we are we had talked to many people here at the hospital and it was decided that he needed to have something called a hemispherectomy so hemispherectomy is probably the most challenging operation and it's used in fairly rare cases where one whole half of the brain is not working well but it's causing seizures and involves actually disconnecting one whole half of the brain from the rest of the brain and from everything on the other side what's really made a big difference is being able to actually get a model of the brain that we can practice the surgery on we're doing the surgery I'll never forget when he said you know we're gonna do something with your son that we've never done with anybody before and I was like what and he said we have this 3d printing machine and I can make an actual replica of his brain before the surgery 3d printing has been used to make guns dresses cars and prosthetics but using new 3d technology bch can simulate the conditions of even the most difficult of surgeries this technology allows them to take CT and MRI scans of a patient's brain and turn them into 3d printed models which surgeons can practice on before going into the operating room so I was actually able to perform this operation in its entirety on this child the night before surgery and actually show it to the parents and say this is what we're going to be doing it was so amazing to know that the surgeon was gonna go in and actually do the surgery on this replica before he was gonna touch my baby until now medical simulations have been limited to simple training exercises like CPR or intubation Gabriel surgery marks a breakthrough in medical simulation nobody wants to be the first person to get a hemispherectomy from a particular surgeon ever really so why would you ever want to have your first operation be on a real patient and I think that's what what we're seeing with with the simulator movement 3d printing using simulation offers an opportunity to cascade knowledge to share knowledge in a box if there's a surgeon in another country who is interested in doing a very particular surgery on a patient on a child imagine the opportunity to send the images of that particular patient have us print those images have our surgeons iterate the surgery and send them back essentially a kit that they can hold in their hands that's a game-changer being able to actually do a patient specific operation I think is a real plus that that I've really enjoyed having that opportunity we did the surgery this this boy has been seizure-free ever since and his parents are just absolutely thrilled and they're really wonderful people all three of them he's doing great he's starting to hit all these milestones that he missed he doesn't have to have these seizures take his life away I hope every hospital in the world ends up with this kind of technology because it is such a godsend I thank God for this place every day