VOA慢速英语2015 3D心脏打印模型帮助医生并拯救生命（在线收听）

3-D Printed Model Heart Guides Surgeons, Saves Lives 3D心脏打印模型帮助医生并拯救生命

Researchers are now using three-dimensional, or 3D printing to create models of the human heart to help heart specialists. The heart doctors can use the models to better help patients before an operation.

研究者开始使用3D打印技术制造人类心脏模型来帮助心脏专科医生，心脏医生可以使用这些模型来在做手术前更好地帮助患者。

Surgeons regularly use digital images to explore the heart in close detail. But no two human hearts are alike. This led Matthew Bramlet to create exact heart models from those images. Dr. Bramlet is a pediatric or children’s heart expert at the University of Illinois College of Medicine. He says the 3-D models show information he cannot get any other way.

外科上一般使用数字图像来了解详细的心脏情况，但没有哪两颗人类心脏是一样的。为此，马修·布拉姆莱特使用这些图像制造了一模一样的心脏模型，布拉姆莱特博士是伊利诺斯大学医学院的儿童心脏专家，他说3D模型能显示其他方式无法显示的信息。

“Even when I will take the MRI and render the images, even a print heart that is sort of spinning on the screen, it’s still a 2-D screen. And so what we’ve done with the printed models, we've pulled it out of the screen so that you can actually hold it in your hand and evaluate the anatomy for the first time in a manner that makes sense and is logical.”

“即使是用核磁共振产生图像，打印出的心脏也是附着在屏幕上的，仍然是2D的屏幕。我们就把打印模型从屏幕中拿出来，这样就能拿在手中，这样就能第一次以合理和有意义的方式评估解剖问题。”

A 3-D printer uses images from a digital display to create a physical model of a human heart. Matthew Bramlet says doctors can use the model, in his words, "to understand the anatomy for the first time.” 

3D打印机使用数字显示器上的图像来制造人类心脏的实体模型，布拉姆莱特说医生们能使用这些模型来“首次理解解剖学”。

Pictures from medical tests like CAT scan or MRI are sent to a 3-D printer to create a heart in a plaster or clay form. The printer then constructs the heart, thin layer by thin layer. Dr. Bramlet says the model matches the real heart in every detail. “When we’re done with the model and made our decision, we want to be able to go back to the source image and confirm those findings,” he says.

利用造影扫描图或核磁共振等医疗手段获得的图像可以发送到3D打印机上，来制造石膏或粘土材质的心脏。打印机然后组建心脏，一薄层一薄层地组建。布拉姆莱特博士说这种模型与真实的心脏非常吻合。“当我们做出模型，做出决定后，我们就想能够回到原图片上来证实这些发现。”

Dr. Bramlet has built model hearts for different kinds of heart operations. All of the operations were successful. In his first case, digital images showed only one tiny hole in a baby’s heart. But, the 3-D printed model showed several defects or problems that the baby was born with. Dr. Bramlet says those defects could not be seen easily in the images. The heart surgeon was able to change the type of surgery for the patient based on the 3-D model. He added that 3-D heart models saves time during heart operations.

布拉姆莱特博士已为各种不同的心脏手术建造了模型心脏，所有手术都很成功。在他的第一个病例中，数字图像只显示了婴儿心脏上的一个小洞，但3D打印模型显示婴儿出生时就有几个缺陷。布拉姆莱特博士说这些缺陷在图片中不能轻易发现，这位心脏外科医生就能根据3D模型来改变患者的手术类型，他说3D模型还能节约心脏手术的时间。

“In the future, relying on that information would allow us to not even have to stop the heart to sort of go down the alternative pathway.”

“未来，依靠这种信息我们就无需让心脏停止并寻找别的办法了。”

Kathy Magliato is a cardiac surgeon at Saint John’s Health Center in Los Angeles. She welcomes the new technology. She says it could help her make better decisions before she operates on the hearts of her patients.

凯西·马利亚托是洛杉矶圣约翰医院的心脏外科医师，她对这项新技术表示欢迎，她说该技术能帮她在给患者做心脏手术前做出更好的决定。

“The fact that I can then take this very complicated structure, which has endless possibilities of what it could look like anatomically when I open the body, and you give it to me before the operation and I can hold it in my hand and plan an operation around what I’m seeing, touching and feeling. That to me is what can potentially change the game in an operation and save lives.”

“我能利用这种非常复杂的结构，在我打开人体时，这种结构在解剖学上有着无限的可能性，在我做手术前把这个模型给我，我能把它拿在手中，根据我所看、所触摸和所感受来计划一项手术，这对我来说就有可能改变一项手术并拯救生命。”

Matthew Bramlet continues to research the technology. He is working with the National Institutes of Health to build a 3-D library that includes heart models and images that others can use.

马修·布拉姆莱特仍在继续研究这项科技，他正与国立卫生研究院合作建造一个3D图书馆，其中包含有心脏模型和图像，以供其他人使用。

Words in this Story

cardiac – adj. of or relating to the heart

CAT scan – n. a picture of the inside of a part of your body that is made by a computerized machine

defect – n. a problem or fault that makes someone or something not perfect

MRI – n. magnetic resonance imaging; a method used to produce images of the inside of a person's body by means of a strong magnetic field