Design of Optimal Right Ventricle to Pulmonary Conduits for Use in Surgery for Congenital Heart Disease

Abstract

Objective: Cardiovascular prostheses are routinely used in surgical procedures to address congenital malformations, for example establishing a pathway from the right ventricle to the pulmonary arteries (RV-PA). Current off-the-shelf options have limited biocompatibility and durability, and their fixed size necessitates multiple subsequent operations to upsize the conduit to match patients’ growth over their lifetime. Moreover, the rigidity and the pre-set shape of these implants increases the complexity of operation to accommodate patient specific anatomy. Our goal is to address these limitations by 3D printing geometrically customized implants with growth capacity.