Assist. Prof. Dr. Munir Khamas Faraj, a consultant neurosurgeon from the college of medicine at the University of Baghdad was granted, as part of an Iraqi medical research team, a patent from the Central Organization for Standardization and Quality Control at the ministry of planning for their invention in the use of 3D printing technology to access deep brain tumors instead of the traditional surgical navigation technique.
It is noteworthy that tractography is a 3D modeling technique used to visually represent nerve tracts using data collected by diffusion MRI, also using special techniques of magnetic resonance imaging and computer-based diffusion MRI where the results are presented in two or three dimensional images of the brain called tractograms on which the surgical interference is intended in tumor operations. Then the artificial model is brought to the operating room whereas the surgeon can determine the optimal point to start penetrating the brain and the path to be taken to reach at the tumor with the least damage to the normal tissues as well as for matching the patient’s brain with the model in a way that saves time, reduces any side effects as well as the cost of medical operations since the filaments used with 3D printers cost as an average only thirty dollars for at least five patients.
