This startup prints organs in 3D so that doctors are more precise in their surgeries

Simulation software Robotic forceps handled by doctors. Live video that allows you to follow the path of an incision, the stitches of a stitching needle, a scissors that cuts. The operating room of a doctor is a space increasingly mediated by various technologies. And now we add another element, previous, based on 3D printing and strong support for added value, which will help that this set of tools allows a surgery with more prevention and less risk.

This is the work that is being carried out by Medical Design, a startup that integrates the group of ventures driven by Open Innovation, the arm of the Telefónica Group to detect innovative solutions for any segment, and which prints organs in 3D with their pathologies or problems. The objective is that surgeons can practice incisions and other medical arts before entering the operating room as many times as necessary.

The startup was created by George Kassis and Eliseo Guzmán, co-founders of Medical Design. This year they participated in the first Open Innovation call through Open Future in La Plata and the project was one of those that entered the program, which sought to help them grow in their development, both from the point of view of the business and from the training

Entrepreneurship combines the modeling of organs using 3D printers in two types of plastic, one harder and one softer, and a previous treatment of tomographic images and other studies that allow to have the perfect design of that heart, or of that brain, or of that lung that is going to print.

"We designed a protocol for the taking of images, a tomography goes through four systems, so we designed a better way to make those shots and then that tomography is reconstructed in order to be able to make 3D printing", explained Eliseo Guzmán to iProUP .

From that impression, the doctor who will perform the surgery may practice cuts, insertions and other actions involved in the treatment. If one of these tests reveals that the planned task will not work, the practice will be repeated with a new printed organ. Or with the part of the body that will be worked on

"By taking the printed parts or the printed organ before surgery, you can also anticipate changing the surgical procedure to follow, because in this practice it is possible to contemplate modifying something," explained George Kassis.

The 3D modeling of the organs is complemented by other instruments that doctors use in the operating room, ranging from simulators to robots - Da Vinci style, or other, according to the clinic - and the rest of the tools that are used for the surgery to be successful. That is, it does not replace anything. Help, in principle, to the doctor.

Impacts at all levels
But there are other positive "side effects" that impact, mainly, on the health system. Because performing this prior practice -that the doctor does take more time to prepare- minimizes the risks of the intervention, reduces the hours of surgery, the postoperative period is shorter and the beds of a clinic or a hospital are freed more quickly. hospital.

Kassis said that surgery that can usually take 10 hours, with the implementation of this service can be reduced to two hours. The application of its service is oriented to highly complex interventions.

This translates into cost reduction, an aspect that health centers always seek to achieve, whether public or private.

The technology that combines the use of software that improves the taking of images, plus the printing of the organs or part of them in 3D, is already used in different countries of the world. It is usually applied especially in oncology and in various tumor pathologies. In Argentina there are some cases carried out in the private sector of the city of Buenos Aires.

The service offered by the startup is not only in the taking of images and in printing. It is also complemented by the direct work of Eliseo and George with each of the doctors involved in a surgery.

They accompany the whole process of practice with the specialists until the moment of the operation. Come along with the surgeon what you want to do to improve the incisions or whatever you have to practice in the body involved.

"The models are made based on what the doctor wants to do and gives the chance to try as many times as you want," insisted both Kassis and Guzman.

Until now, Medical Design participated only in a surgery in which a maxillofacial tumor was removed to a 21-year-old man. To this, several consultancies with other experts are added to explain the novelty of this technology.

The entrepreneurs presented their startup last week to the top executives of the two leading companies of prepaid medicine in the country, Swiss Medical and OSDE, with the aim of analyzing the incorporation of this service in their sanatoriums.

After having reached this stage thanks to its participation in Open Future, Medical Design will continue with the focus on

- Strengthen the presurgical service

- Add customers

- Join the cluster of medicine that exists in Junín, province of Buenos Aires

- Consolidate the research process with the Conicet for the development of skin and grafts and, later, organ production for transplants, in the long term.

Logically, this path will continue to be developed by Open Future, which has already opened the third call for high impact startups in the Buenos Aires area of Junín (Buenos Aires), Mendoza and Corrientes.

Medical Design is an enterprise that recently entered the Open Future Space "La Catedral", an area of support for the ecosystem promoted jointly by the Municipality of La Plata and Telefónica, with the aim of developing a regional entrepreneurial community with great potential for growth, based on the importance of the relationship between the public and private sectors.

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