Making artefacts replicating human organs to train surgeons to simulate complex surgical operations and improve training sounds like a regular plan to make it easier for young doctors to perform difficult operations. What’s new is that it relies on virtual reality and 3D printing, the technologies behind Printmed 3D project. The project has just been launched and combines academic and industrial expertise under the coordination of the University of Milan.

This is a new page for the Italian academic world since the plan brings together the Department of Physics, the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery and the Centre of Excellence Interdisciplinary Nanostructured Materials and Interfaces, as well as the involvement of the Carlo Besta Neurological Institute Foundation. A combination of heterogeneous realities for a project with a high degree of interdisciplinarity that brought together engineers, physicists, entrepreneurs, computer scientists and clinical experts.

A project to fill a gap

But why are these professionals focusing on virtual reality? The answer is simple: integrating VR with 3D anatomical models that touch the organs they replicate in terms of texture and physical properties is an innovative solution that accelerates the preparation of young surgeons. This path requires many years of testing. In other words, Printmed-3D makes it possible to integrate innovative printing techniques with libraries of materials and original software solutions to achieve effective and reliable applications in the surgical and clinical fields.

Due to its innovative scope, which is destined to open a new frontier for the training of healthcare personnel, who will be able to perform surgeries with greater knowledge and awareness, in 2019 the Milanese project won the Lombardy Region’s ‘Call Hub Research and Innovation’ contest, while in 2022 it received funding through the National Recovery and Resilience Plan – a plan approved in 2021 by Italy to revive the economy after the COVID-19 pandemic, to enable the country’s green and digital development. Considering that we are talking about simulating human tissues and organs, it is important to stress that Printmed-3D does not aim to make organs transplanted to humans, neither now nor in the future.

Created during the COVID-19 pandemic to meet the demand for respirators by the hospital in Bergamo, a city particularly affected by the coronavirus, the next step was to create organ models to train surgeons before actual surgeries. “Almost like flight simulators, so that complex surgeries can then be performed more quickly, safely and effectively,” Paolo Milani, director of the Physics Department at Milan State University and scientific head of the Printmed 3D project, told Wired Italia. How does the creation process work? From the clinical data, a copy of the organ is made using laser machines and subsequent modelling by hand, with a material composed of polymers recovered from waste and processed to facilitate printing.

Benefits for everyone

For the surgeons being studied, the benefit is the acceleration of training, which leads to more practice and, in turn, a reduction in the occupation time of the operating theatre and hospital rooms. A scenario that, in turn, generates lower costs and a leap in quality for Italian hospitals, which are continually put to the test.

“Until now, training takes place on standard models that are far removed from real experience or on cadavers, with an expensive and complex process. This means working on the patient with a certain risk, because it takes ten years to train a neurosurgeon,’ said Milani.

Beyond the alternatives, working on haptic models allows surgeons to experiment better. Being able to print and practice in the days before the surgery on the affected organ, simulating its condition to cope with complexity before operating directly on the patient is a valuable advantage. Patients can also benefit from Printmed-3D, with a greater understanding of what they face thanks to the surgeons’ explanations with 3D reproduced organs in hand.

Lungs, hearts, veins, and kidneys are some of the organs and tissues already available in the Milan laboratory. This process is currently unparalleled in terms of the verisimilitude of the artefacts with real organs.