3D Printed Model Demonstration (delivery of a left atrial appendage occlusion device)

The device we’re talking about potentially delivering is this device called the WATCHMAN device. It’s sort of an umbrella shaped device. Think of the appendage as a little pouch that sits here, and this device basically comes in here, the feeder in the device and it covers the ostium into it to basically close it up.

To deliver this device we have to come up the vein from the groin, come across the interatrial septum, make a little hole through it, put a sheet through it and deliver the device. That’s simple enough. So, let’s see if we can actually see it. So, what we use this device is to sort of teach people how to do transseptal punctures. So to do transseptal punctures you essentially have this transseptal sheet device many, many years ago.

So when we teach this, we sort of use this model to sort of look at a couple of things. Typically when you teach the transseptal puncture, what you want your operators to do is you put the device in the IVC which is the vein that drains into the right atrium. So you come from the IVC and you go to the drain about the SVC, and then as you drag your sheath back it first drops into the right atrium, and then it drops into the fossa, which is a thin portion of the septum. So, you teach people to look on fluoro and teach those two drops. We can actually show those two drops in a 3D model, we can actually use that so they can get a sense of what we’re talking about.