Health
Custom 3D-Printed Hearts Offer Help for Valve Replacements
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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.