Dr. Miguel Martínez Arias
Centro médico ISSEMyM - Metepec, México
Benefits
✔ Identify where the fracture sites were located.
✔ Define the surgical approach.
✔ Plan the surgery
✔ Visualize the extent of the surgical technique used.
Clinical case
A 51-year-old male patient was admitted to the hospital with trauma following an accident in which he was hit by a vehicle.
The accident left the patient with bilateral rib fractures that caused respiratory distress.
Dr. Martinez Arias, therefore, requested virtual 3D reconstruction in order to better understand the thoracic structure, how it was fractured and if the patient was a candidate to be operated with a special type of surgery called MARF.
Surgical planning and results in the operating room
The MARF technique is a mini-invasive technique developed in the surgical service of ISSEMyM. MARF stands for mini-invasive rib fixation. By means of this technique, different costal arches are approached in order to fix them and reconstruct the thorax through a very small wound.
With the 3D anatomical model they were able to identify where the fracture sites were, the relationship with the lungs and they were able to define and affirm the application of the MARF technique to perform the bilateral reconstruction of the thorax.
After the operation, Dr. Martinez Arias requested a post-surgical biomodel to visualize the distance between fractures that can be achieved with this type of approach. In this case, the distance between one fractured rib and the other was 16cm.
"It helped us a lot to understand how the fractures were identified, to be able to plan our surgery and to be able to see if we could use this MARF technique to be able to recover the patient, to be able to fix him. This was possible and the patient evolved satisfactorily", comments Dr. Arias on the application of 3D tools for this type of case.
More on chest surgery: "3D Chest - Narrowing resection margins and achieving a more economical surgery". Dr. Matías Nicolás at the Hospital Privado de Comunidad (Mar del Plata, Argentina) had 3D anatomical models that allowed him to perform a minimally invasive approach.