A one-year-old child with a tumour in her kidneys was treated using virtual reality and 3D printing technology at Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research here.
The child had palpable swelling in her abdomen, and a CT scan revealed a large tumour affecting both kidneys. A team of doctors comprising Ramesh Babu Srinivasan, paediatric urologist, and Julius Scott, paediatric oncologist, evaluated the child and put her on chemotherapy for six weeks to shrink the tumour, which was too big to operate on.
Post-therapy, scan images of the tumour were enlarged to help plan the surgery. The doctors did a virtual reconstruction and replicas of the kidney and tumour were 3D printed. The doctors used these to plan and simulate the surgical procedure. Latha Ravichandran, professor of paediatrics, and Dean, Education, said the procedure’s significance was in its use of Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research’s virtual reality laboratory.
