Development of a patient-specific chest computed tomography imaging phantom with realistic lung lesions using silicone casting and three-dimensional printing

Abstract

The validation of the accuracy of the quantification software in computed tomography (CT) images is very challenging. Therefore, we proposed a CT imaging phantom that accurately represents patient-specific anatomical structures and randomly integrates various lesions including disease-like patterns and lesions of various shapes and sizes using silicone casting and three-dimensional (3D) printing. Six nodules of various shapes and sizes were randomly added to the patient’s modeled lungs to evaluate the accuracy of the quantification software. By using silicone materials, CT intensities suitable for the lesions and lung parenchyma were realized, and their Hounsfield unit (HU) values were evaluated on a CT scan of the phantom. As a result, based on the CT scan of the imaging phantom model, the measured HU values for the normal lung parenchyma, each nodule, fibrosis, and emphysematous lesions were within the target value. The measurement error between the stereolithography model and 3D-printing phantoms was 0.2 ± 0.18 mm. In conclusion, the use of 3D printing and silicone casting allowed the application and evaluation of the proposed CT imaging phantom for the validation of the accuracy of the quantification software in CT images, which could be applied to CT-based quantification and development of imaging biomarkers.

A customized anthropomorphic 3D-printed phantom to reproducibility assessment in computed tomography: an oncological case study

“…Moreover, the proposed manufacturing approach can also be extended to a variety of other districts and other imaging modalities such as MRI and PET ( 28 – 31 ).…”

Advances and Applications of Three-Dimensional-Printed Patient-Specific Chest Phantoms in Radiology: A Systematic Review

“…Fused-deposition modelling (FDM) was the most widely applied printing method for developing 3D-printed thoracic phantoms reported in the literature [18,30,[32][33][34][38][39][40][41][42][43][44] (Figure 3).…”

“…Fused-deposition modelling (FDM) was the most widely applied printing method for developing 3D-printed thoracic phantoms reported in the literature [18,30,[32][33][34][38][39][40][41][42][43][44] (Figure 3). The range of materials utilised for 3D-printed thoracic models and their corresponding radiation attenuations are illustrated in Figure 2.…”

“…Articles were found to print different thoracic structures, such as lungs [32,[36][37][38][39][40][41]44,46,48], nodules [32,33,36,38,39,45,46,48], vessels [18,30,32,36,37,39,41,42,44,47], heart [39,41], airways [36], breast [40], muscles [30,32,39,40,42,48], skin [39], fat [30,32,39,48], and bones of the thorax [32,[34][35][36][37][39][40][41]…”

Developing tuneable viscoelastic silicone gel-based inks for precise 3D printing of clinical phantoms

“…Thus, these properties are important for creating long-lasting and realistic phantoms that accurately simulate the properties of human tissues. For example, silicone has been used to replicate the internal structure of the human bronchial vasculature 43 due to its versatility in tensile strength (ranging from 0.2 to 165 MPa, with PDMS being the gold standard at 5 MPa), 44 and elongation at break (5% to 1490%). 44 However, intrinsic issues of silicone processing, such as its high viscosity for formulations of higher elastic modulus, and the complexity of controlling the polymerization reaction, make it more challenging to process silicone formulations through 3D printing, relegating the fabrication of complex structures to more simple fabrication procedures such as casting.…”