Multimaterial three-dimensional printing in brachytherapy: Prototyping teaching tools for interstitial and intracavitary procedures in cervical cancers
As the utilization of brachytherapy procedures continues to decline in clinics, a need for accessible training tools is required to help bridge the gap between resident comfort in brachytherapy training and clinical practice. To improve the quality of intracavitary and interstitial high-dose-rate brachytherapy education, a multimaterial, modular, three-dimensionally printed pelvic phantom prototype simulating normal and cervical pathological conditions has been developed. Patient anatomy was derived from pelvic CT and MRI scans from 50 representative patients diagnosed with localized cervical cancer. Dimensions measured from patients' uterine body and uterine canal sizes were used to construct a variety of uteri based off of the averages and standard deviations of the subjects in our study. Soft-tissue anatomy was three-dimensionally printed using Agilus blends (shore 30 and 70) and modular components using Vero (shore 85). The kit consists of four uteri, a standard bladder, a standard rectum, two embedded gross tumor volumes, and four clip-on gross tumor volume attachments. The three anteverted uteri in the kit are based on the smallest, the average, and the largest dimensions from our patient set, whereas the retroverted uterus assumes average dimensions. This educational high-dose-rate gynecological pelvic phantom is an accessible and cost-effective way to improve radiation oncology resident training in intracavitary/interstitial brachytherapy cases. Implementation of this phantom in resident education will allow for more thorough and comprehensive physician training through its ability to transform the patient scenario. It is expected that this tool will help improve confidence and efficiency when performing brachytherapy procedures in patients.
