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Setting up a biomodeling, virtual planning, and three-dimensional printing service in Uruguay

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A Correction to this article was published on 20 February 2024

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Abstract

Virtual surgical planning and three-dimensional (D) printing are rapidly becoming essential for challenging and complex surgeries around the world. An Ibero-American survey reported a lack of awareness of technology benefits and scarce financial resources as the two main barriers to widespread adoption of 3-D technologies. The Pereira Rossell Hospital Center is a publicly funded maternal and pediatric academic clinical center in Uruguay, a low-resource Latin American country, that successfully created and has been running a 3-D unit for 4 years. The present work is a step-by-step review of the 3-D technology implementation process in a hospital with minimal financial investment. References to training, software, hardware, and the management of human resources are included. Difficulties throughout the process and future challenges are also discussed.

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Data availability

A video demonstration depicting the navigation of a 3-D biomodel for virtual surgical planning is available as Supplementary Material. Complementary clinical data on the anonymized patients are not openly available due to reasons of sensitivity and are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge radiologists Dr. Jose Perdomo, Dr. Juan Sattler, and industrial engineer Nicolas Rucks for their important role in the initiation of the 3-D Printing Unit at the Pereira Rossell Hospital Center. In addition, the creation of this Unit would not have been possible without the trust and support of Dr. Victoria Lafluf, Pereira Rossell Hospital General Director. We would also like to express our gratitude to Victoria Ramirez, Hansel Otero, and Mohammad Jalloul, for their invaluable contribution in the preparation of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Imagenología, Centro Hospitalario Pereira Rossell, Bulevar Artigas 1550, 11300, Montevideo, Uruguay

    Silvina Zabala-Travers & Andrés García-Bayce

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  1. Silvina Zabala-Travers
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Contributions

Both authors contributed to the preparation of this manuscript. The first draft of the manuscript was written by S.Z-T. and revised by A.G-B. Both authors read and approved the final version of this manuscript.

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Correspondence to Silvina Zabala-Travers.

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Conflicts of interest

S.Z-T. is a co-founder of Upgrade Medicals a 3-D technologies company in Uruguay and has a collaboration with Inobitec DICOM Viewer PRO software developers. A.G-B. declares no conflicts of interest.

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The original online version of this article was revised: The original article contains an error in relation to the details of the company, Inobitec, which authors of the article gave as “Inobitec LLC, Voronezh, Russia, DICOM Viewer Pro ® FZ LLC, Extended Segmentation Module”. This should read as “Inobitec DICOM Viewer Pro, Inobitec Software FZ LLC, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

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Zabala-Travers, S., García-Bayce, A. Setting up a biomodeling, virtual planning, and three-dimensional printing service in Uruguay. Pediatr Radiol 54, 438–449 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00247-024-05864-1

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