Study of 3D printing materials as potential applications of phantom radiology

Abstract

Abstract This paper reports the results of the study of 3D printing materials applied as phantom radiology, which is an imitation of human body tissue for medical radiology purposes. The types of 3D printing materials were ABS, PETG, flexible TPU, Wood and PLA resin. Each of them was printed using 3D printing into phantom sample of 30 mm x 30 mm x 9 mm. The phantom samples were then tested using Siemens CT-Scan machine. Radiant Dicom Viewers and Micro Dicom Viewers software were used to process the data and determine the amount of CT number. The CT number values of ABS, PETG, fleksible TPU, Wood and PLA resin filaments were -680,00 HU; -641,17 HU; -685,62 HU; -690,00 HU and 133,00 HU. The electron density values of 3D printing materials were 0,32; 0,36; 0,31; 0,31 and 1,12. These two values were confirmed using Gammex 467 Tissue Characterization Phantom. The results found that ABS, Wood, PETG and FLEX had potential for lung phantom radiology materials. However fleksibel TPU filament has the greatest potential because it has the closest CT-number and electron density value.