Wayne Newhauser, professor and director of medical and health physics, is partnering with architecture assistant professor Jason Crow to incorporate 3-D printing into cancer treatment programs.
Newhauser said he decided to pursue the technology for medical research after Trey and Kim Bowman of the Bella Bowman Foundation approached him. The Bowmans’ 7-year-old daughter, Bella, died in 2011 from necrosis, or rapid cell death, following radiation therapy for a brain tumor.
The Bowmans funded two grants for Newhauser and student researchers to study the rare side effect. It became clear during the necrosis research that more detailed phantoms — models used for imaging and radiation testing — were needed, Newhauser said.
He turned to 3-D printing.
“I think that’s really our role as scientists and engineers: to find ways to bring these new tools into the clinic and make them available and ready for our physicians to use in treating patients,” Newhauser said.
The research collaboration between Newhauser and Crow began last fall. Crow, with three student researchers, has been spearheading the production of the phantoms using a BigRep large scale 3-D printer.
A phantom is produced when a full body scan is uploaded into the 3-D printer, adjustments to the model are made to correct for computational errors and then the model is printed using a polylactic acid filament. The model is then refined, structural support materials are removed and the model is sanded.”
Crow and his student researchers are beginning to test the models for water tightness. During radiation and imaging evaluations, the models will be filled with water because it mimics the characteristics of soft tissue, Newhauser said.
An expert in multiple manufacturing technologies, Crow said he is testing different production methods to determine the most effective process for producing the models efficiently. Combining 3-D printing with milling to produce a smooth, customized piece is a popular option, he said.
Current models are being printed at a fraction of full size, but production could be scaled to full size within the coming weeks, Crow said. He estimated a full-scale model would take nearly two weeks to complete from scan to finished product.
The personalization capable through 3-D printing is an improvement on the generic phantoms currently used, he said.
“Bodies are different, so the mass of the body, the way the flesh is distributed, all this kind of stuff changes the way the radiation penetrates the body,” Crow said.
Current radiation therapy is highly regulated and more than sufficient for most patients, Newhauser said. But in special cases, doctors must go beyond standard treatment methods to assess a patient’s needs.
“Those standard phantoms, that one-size-fits-all approach, really doesn’t work very well for cases where the anatomy is very different or changing,” Newhauser said. “There’s a relatively small but important number of patients for whom having personalized phantoms available would help us to research how to do better treatments.”
The personalized models will allow researchers to determine the distribution of radiation across the patient’s entire body and better target beam placement for radiation treatments. This could help researchers reduce leakage radiation and prevent excess radiation from damaging healthy cells, like in Bella’s case.
Aside from the personalization factor, 3-D printing is economical. Newhauser said he can easily see 3-D printing being incorporated into common use as the technology is fine tuned and more widely disseminated.
In addition to phantoms, 3-D printing can produce hardware for immobilizing patients during treatment and beam-modifying devices to personalize the radiation beam’s properties for particular treatments.
Moving forward, Newhauser said he hopes the research team can finalize a prototype of its research method, including the 3-D printing, scan methods and necessary algorithms. In five to six years, he wants to prove its feasibility and disseminate it to healthcare providers. He said he has already begun discussing commercialization with two medial equipment manufacturers.

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Catherine Seddon

LSU medical physics professor, Dr. Newhauser; along with LSU architecture assistant professor, Dr. Crow; are developing specialized 3D models to improve cancer radiation therapies using a 3-D printer.