Mount Sinai Establishes 3D Modeling Services

Mount Sinai Health System hospital network has announced the Medical Modeling Core collaboration, led by the Department of Neurosurgery, where clinicians can confer and order 3D models for their patients.

Virtual reality, simulation and 3D printing services will be provided on a low-cost, fee-for-service basis with quick turnaround times. The resource will be the first of its kind, catering to the unique patient-specific modeling requirements of clinicians at Mount Sinai.

This 3D print was produced by Mount Sinai's Medical Modeling Core. Courtesy of Mount Sinai Health Systems.

"Our simulation, prototyping and 3D printing resources developed here at Mount Sinai are rare for a medical institution," said Dr. Joshua Bederson, professor and system chair for the Department of Neurosurgery at Mount Sinai Health System and clinical director of the Neurosurgery Simulation Core. "These models are used in the planning stages for minimally invasive approaches and can be a trial run for the surgery. In conjunction with simulation, they also play an important role in the patient consultation process."

Dr. Anthony Costa, assistant professor for the Department of Neurosurgery and scientific director of the Neurosurgery Simulation Core at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, is leading the 3D printing team. Dr. Costa has developed segmentation tools and computer code to expedite the process of turning radiological data into models appropriate for 3D printing and modeling. Recent prints include skull-base tumors with surrounding vasculature and cranial nerves, spine modeling for the correction of severe scoliosis and pelvic models for the planning of arthroplasty.

More than half a dozen interdisciplinary collaborations have been established between the Medical Modeling Core and Mount Sinai clinical departments including neurosurgery, orthopedics, surgery, otolaryngology and cardiology.

"We're unique because we can leverage our technological tools with the expertise of radiology and the printing lab to complete projects on a rapid time scale," Costa said. "We're talking about days as opposed to weeks. Mount Sinai is a large institution with a high volume of cases and our patients will benefit from 3D modeling."

Mount Sinai Health System is an integrated health system providing care, conducting transformative research and advancing biomedical education.