Haptische, generische Modelle weicher anatomischer Strukturen für die chirurgische Simulation

Description

In the fields of medical education and training as well as the development of new medical devices, the simulation of surgical procedures is an important tool for the evaluation and improvement of professional skills or product performance. As a result, training as well as product development times and thus costs can be reduced by the knowledge gained. The work on cadavers is currently considered the gold standard of surgical simulation, but other biological and simplified synthetic models are also used.

In order to expand this portfolio, the share of synthetic anatomical models with complex geometry and realistic material properties is growing. A special challenge is the representation of soft tissue structures (e.g. heart), for which the model developed in this dissertation presents a new solution. A generic digital model generation enables the illustration of any adaptable anatomy and pathology due to the high resulting design flexibility. The additive manufacturing with silicone enables the efficient scalable production of these variable complex models. The process model is finalized by biomechanical and medical investigations, which validate the anatomical correctness and evaluate the mechanical behavior in comparison to the biological original.