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UCLA Health - UCLA doctors use 3-D printed model to guide tricky heart valve replacement | UCLA Health

Thumbnail of the video “UCLA Health - UCLA doctors use 3-D printed model to guide tricky heart valve replacement | UCLA Health”
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Author: UCLA Health
Categories: Health
Tags: health
Views: 2 · Last viewed: 2026-10-16 15:00 UTC

Short Summary

Main recommendation: UCLA doctors used a partial 3D-printed model of a patient's heart to plan and practice a pulmonary valve replacement before performing it without open-heart surgery. The model, built from CAT scans and MRIs, let the team test their devices and choose the exact valve placement for that patient.

Key Points

  • The patient, 66-year-old Richard Whitaker, had worn-out heart valve problems, leg swelling, fluid in his lungs, and trouble breathing, and was often falling asleep at the kitchen table.
  • His case was challenging because of extremely swollen arteries, irregular heart openings, and hard calcium deposits, which made the anatomy hard to plan around.
  • The 3D model allowed doctors to rehearse the procedure, which the video compares to a pilot practicing on a flight simulator.
  • The procedure was minimally invasive: the new valve was threaded through an artery in the groin into the heart using a balloon and catheter, without opening the chest.
  • After the procedure took two and a half hours, the patient's valve held tight and blood flowed in just one direction, and he was planning travel one week later.

Details Worth Noting

Concrete instructions: The video describes the doctors' sequence rather than instructions for viewers. In the procedure, doctors first practiced on the 3D model, then deployed a stent to act as a scaffold holding the new valve in place in a narrow area. The new valve was crimped onto a deflated balloon, guided through the catheter into position, and the balloon was inflated to open it. No steps are given for patients or other clinicians to follow.

  • The model was built from CAT scans and MRIs and was printed in a material that the doctors described as harder, to replicate the calcium.
  • Doctors said the model let them see the anatomy in three dimensions and test devices in the actual model, and sometimes adjust devices to fit one specific patient.
  • Doctors Abdul Hassen and Levy performed the procedure, and the patient's wife said the 3D model approach relieved a lot of stress for both her and her husband.
  • Before the procedure, the catheter and blood flow were shown moving back and forth through the defective valve, while afterward blood flowed in one direction.

Bottom Line

Patient-specific 3D printing can turn a complex heart valve procedure into a rehearsed, precisely planned minimally invasive operation.