VOA慢速英语: 3D打印心脏模型指导外科医生挽救生命

3-D Printed Model Heart Guides Surgeons, Saves Lives

3D打印心脏模型指导外科医生挽救生命

Researchers are now using three-dimensional, or 3D printing to create models of the human heart to help heart specialists. The heart doctors can use the models to better help patients before an operation.

研究者正在使用三维技术或者3D打印技术来创造人类心脏帮助心脏病专家。心脏病医生可以在手术前使用模型来更好地帮助病人。

Surgeons regularly use digital images to explore the heart in close detail. But no two human hearts are alike. This led Matthew Bramlet to create exact heart models from those images. Dr. Bramlet is a pediatric or children's heart expert at the University of Illinois College of Medicine. He says the 3-D models show information he cannot get any other way.

外科医生通常使用数字图像来近距离探索心脏细微之处。但是没有人的心脏是相同的。这使得马修·布莱姆莱特通过这些数字图像创造更精准的模型。布莱姆莱特博士是伊利诺大学医学院的儿科心脏病专家。他说3D模型展示给他一种用别的方式没办法获得的信息。

"Even when I will take the MRI and render the images, even a print heart that is sort of spinning on the screen, it's still a 2-D screen. And so what we've done with the printed models, we've pulled it out of the screen so that you can actually hold it in your hand and evaluate the anatomy for the first time in a manner that makes sense and is logical."

“即使使用核磁共振呈现图像，虽然图像会在屏幕中旋转，呈现动态，但仍然是2D屏幕。我们使用3D打印模型，则能把屏幕中的图像呈现出来，你能够拿在手中，能够用一种合理又符合逻辑的方式进行解刨。”

A 3-D printer uses images from a digital display to create a physical model of a human heart. Matthew Bramlet says doctors can use the model, in his words, "to understand the anatomy for the first time."

3D打印技术通过数字呈现图像的方式来创造一个心脏的实体模型。马修·布莱姆莱特称医生可以使用模型“第一时间来了解解剖学”。

Pictures from medical tests like CAT scan or MRI are sent to a 3-D printer to create a heart in a plaster or clay form. The printer then constructs the heart, thin layer by thin layer. Dr. Bramlet says the model matches the real heart in every detail. "When we're done with the model and made our decision, we want to be able to go back to the source image and confirm those findings," he says.

电脑断层扫描和核磁共振呈现的图像传到3D打印机上来创造一个石膏心脏模型或粘土模型。打印机通过一层一层的薄层构建心脏。布莱姆莱特博士称模型心脏和真心脏各个细节都很符合。他说：“我们完成模型做决定时，希望能够重返原图像，确认这些发现。”

Dr. Bramlet has built model hearts for different kinds of heart operations. All of the operations were successful. In his first case, digital images showed only one tiny hole in a baby's heart. But, the 3-D printed model showed several defects or problems that the baby was born with. Dr. Bramlet says those defects could not be seen easily in the images. The heart surgeon was able to change the type of surgery for the patient based on the 3-D model. He added that 3-D heart models saves time during heart operations.

布莱姆莱特博士为不同的心脏手术建了不同的心脏模型。所有的心脏手术都很成功。在第一例手术中，数字图像显示在婴儿的心脏上只有一个小孔。但是3D打印模型则显示了婴儿出生时的多个缺陷和问题。心脏外科医生能够根据3D模型，为病人改变外科手术方式。此外。3D心脏模型节省了心脏手术过程的时间。

"In the future, relying on that information would allow us to not even have to stop the heart to sort of go down the alternative pathway."

“未来，依靠3D打印技术提供的信息可以使我们不用停止心脏来寻找另外一种可行的方式。”

Kathy Magliato is a cardiac surgeon at Saint John's Health Center in Los Angeles. She welcomes the new technology. She says it could help her make better decisions before she operates on the hearts of her patients.

凯斯·玛格丽特是洛杉矶圣约翰健康中心的心脏外科医生。她接受这种新技术。这种技术能够帮助她给病人做心脏手术前做更好的决策。

"The fact that I can then take this very complicated structure, which has endless possibilities of what it could look like anatomically when I open the body, and you give it to me before the operation and I can hold it in my hand and plan an operation around what I'm seeing, touching and feeling. That to me is what can potentially change the game in an operation and save lives."

“事实上，我能够操作这么复杂的结构，我在病人身上开刀后，就像解剖，有无限个可能发生。但术前给我一个3D打印模型，我能够拿在手中，通过我看到的、摸到的、感觉到的东西决定手术方案。这对我来说确实改变了手术中的操作，同时也挽救了生命。”

Matthew Bramlet continues to research the technology. He is working with the National Institutes of Health to build a 3-D library that includes heart models and images that others can use.

马修·布莱姆莱特继续在科技领域研究探索。他与美国国家维尔卫生院一起合作，创建3D图书馆，有心脏模型和其它一些能够使用的图像。

I'm Jonathan Evans.

我是乔纳森·伊凡斯。

Rosanne Skirble wrote this story from Washington. Jonathan Evans wrote it for Learning English. Mario Ritter edited it.

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Words in this Story

cardiac – adj. of or relating to the heart

CAT scan – n. a picture of the inside of a part of your body that is made by a computerized machine

defect – n. a problem or fault that makes someone or something not perfect

MRI – n. magnetic resonance imaging; a method used to produce images of the inside of a person's body by means of a strong magnetic field

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