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t m c » p u l s e | j u n e 2 0 1 9 35 patient's anatomy." Britz, who has been using the immersion experience with patient anatomy scans for less than a year, said the technology has calmed the fears of patients while offering clarity about surgeries for them and their families. "A patient terrified of the tumor puts on these goggles and sees what you're going to do," he said. "You can explain that something is going to be a problem because their motor fibers are right here and the tumor is completely engrossed and they can put the goggles on and they can see the problem. They understand what you have to do." Step inside the heart For some of the smallest patients, the complex issue is their hearts. At Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital, pediatric car- diothoracic surgeon Jorge Salazar, M.D., can walk into a room-sized hologram of a young patient's heart prior to surgery and consult a 3D-printed, handheld replica of the child's organ. Salazar, co-director of the Children's Heart Center at Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital, uses 3D patient-specific models and holograms for biven- tricular repair and conversions on youngsters whose families are often told that surgery isn't an option and that their children will need transplants when they go into heart failure. "It's tricky to work inside the heart and to understand the three-dimensional relationships that are necessary to provide normal heart repairs for kids who essentially have a scrambled heart," Salazar said. The surgeon combines the 3D information from CT, MRI and echocardiogram scans to formulate his surgical plans. "We use all of those modalities to give us a comprehensive under- standing of the heart's internal structures and their relationships to one another, and we are able to pre-plan and pre-map out the actual repair," he said. "With the 3D imag- ing, we can create 3D models that are both virtual and printed. Now, with the latest technology, we are able to create 3D models with the heart beating—so I guess that's 4D." Sometimes, when a congenital condition has been complicated by previous surgery, Salazar and his team face additional challenges. "We have to essentially take the whole heart apart, undo everything that had been done before and convert [it] to normal heart physiol- ogy and connections," said Salazar, who also serves as professor and chief of pediatric cardiovascular surgery at UTHealth's McGovern Medical School. The technology is helping surgeons repair and rewrite young futures. "We've done 14 conversions of children who were thought to be sin- gle ventricles, meaning 'half heart,' and they were thought to be locked into this future of having half a heart with not only restricted quality of life but with restricted longevity of life," Salazar said. "Many of these kids died or had a heart transplant before they got into their 20s. We've had 100 percent success in converting 14 of those children into normal hearts." 800.826.8911 Fax: 888.617.2421 www. tamupress.com Texas A&M University Press Richard E. Wainerdi and the Texas Medical Center William Henry Kellar Introduction by Barbara Bush Wainerdi's remarkable life story from a bookish childhood in the Bronx to taking charge of the Texas Medical Center and increasing its size threefold. 256 pp. 26 b&w photos. @tamupress I'm Dr. Red Duke Bryant Boutwell Foreword by George H. W. Bush A detailed and intimate portrait of the man behind the larger-than-life television image. 284 pp. 60 b&w photos. "A focused and balanced look at one of the 20th century's most extraordinary and talented surgeons." —Galveston County Daily News $25.00 each or get both for $40.00 * by using discount code MED2019 at tamupress.com MEDICAL READS * before tax and shipping H O U S T O N – M E D I C A L C E N T E R 6750 Main Street | Houston, TX 77030 | 713- 422- 2779 | ichoustonhotel.com Modern Luxury in the Heart of Houston's Medical Center.

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