3D printing in a complex airway injury secondary to erosion of spinal hardware.

The patient is a 45-year-old female with history of recurrent pheochromocytoma metastatic to the spine who has undergone radiation therapy and multiple spinal reconstructive surgeries with hardware replacement. The patient now presents with progressive migration of the spinal hardware resulting in erosion into the right bronchus intermedius causing complete atelectasis of the right lower lobe bronchus. A bronchial stent was placed to restore patency and a definitive treatment was proposed, which would involve removal of the hardware, reconstruction of the airway, and placement of a soft tissue flap. Due to the complexity of the anatomy and surrounding vital structures, and need for a multidisciplinary approach, a 3D rendering of the CT scan was performed using Vitrea® Advanced Visualization software to better evaluate the extent of spinal hardware migration. Due to complexity of the approach, a 3D model was created using the Vitrea segmentation tools and .stl export functionality.

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