Production of heterogenous bone radiopacity phantom using 3D printing

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Biomedical Engineering
• Radiology

Background:

• Realistic bone phantoms are crucial for medical education, surgical planning, and diagnostic imaging.
• Current phantoms often lack adjustable radiopacity and heterogeneity, limiting their utility.
• 3D printing offers a promising avenue for creating customized bone-equivalent models.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a heterogeneous bone phantom with adjustable radiopacity using 3D printing.
• To create a bone-equivalent phantom suitable for medical education, surgical planning, diagnostic radiology, and radiotherapy.
• To validate the radiological properties of the fabricated phantom against real bone.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a hybrid approach combining direct and indirect methods for phantom fabrication.
• Employed stereolithography (SLA) 3D printing with photoreactive resin.
• Modified resin with hydroxyapatite and incorporated hydroxyapatite powder into printed models to achieve desired radiodensity.
• Evaluated attenuation coefficients using Dataviewer software.

Main Results:

• Fabricated hollow, cube-shaped test blocks and a hollow jaw phantom model.
• Achieved realistic attenuation coefficients comparable to human bone.
• The hydroxyapatite-added bone model showed no statistically significant difference from real bone (p:0.860).
• Demonstrated successful heterogeneity in radiological features.

Conclusions:

• The developed 3D printed bone phantom exhibits realistic attenuation coefficients and heterogeneity.
• The hybrid fabrication approach, incorporating hydroxyapatite during printing and as powder, is effective for creating bone-equivalent phantoms.
• The phantom is suitable for diverse medical applications requiring accurate radiological simulation.