3D-Printed Artificial Organ Models for Surgical Applications

Medical errors are one of the leading death causes in the United States, becoming a serious concern in clinical surgeries. Although full elimination of medical errors is unattainable, proper surgical planning and rehearsals on presurgical artificial organ models can reduce the error occurrences. However, current organ models miss multiple important features, such as a lack of tissue-mimicking properties and quantitative sensing feedback, significantly limiting their capabilities in advanced surgical planning and rehearsal. Therefore, the design and development of new methods and customized inks to fabricate patient-specific 3D-printed artificial organ models with accurate tissue-mimicking sensation and real-time operation feedback can be greatly beneficial to surgical applications and outcomes.This chapter introduces relevant fabrication, properties, characterization, and applications of 3D-printed patient-specific prostate models with physical properties of tissue and integrated soft electronic sensors.