DETROIT – Ariana Smith had no idea something was dangerously wrong with her body. The active 17-year-old from Taylor, Michigan, had no symptoms to suggest she had a hidden medical problem.
It was actually something that came up during her brother's sports physical that lead to her remarkable diagnosis.
"My youngest son had to get a sports physical, and when he was younger he had a heart murmur," said Jacqueline Foster, Ariana's mother. "They normally just pass the physicals."
But on that day, there was a doctor filling in for their usual physician. This doctor heard something she didn't like.
"She wanted him to go to the cardiologist just for a follow-up before she passed his physical," said Foster.
That made Foster uneasy about her other three children.
"I went home and just out of the blue, I said, 'Just let me get them all in.'"
Smith had passed numerous physicals for volleyball and cheerleading, but to everyone's surprise, doctors ultimately discovered she had a huge aortic aneurysm.
The aorta is the main artery that carries blood from the heart to the rest of the body. It's walls are supposed to be straight and smooth, but a section of Smith's aorta was weak, bulging and twisted. Aneurysms are called "silent killers" because they can burst suddenly.
"The doctor was talking to my mom, and she started crying about it," said Smith. "I could die from it, so it was really serious for me."
"Hers was very unique in that the aneurysm was quite large, so this was nothing that we had seen before," said Dr. Daniel Turner, a pediatric interventional cardiologist at Children's Hospital of Michigan in Detroit.
Doctors thought it would be possible to treat Smith without the risks of surgery, but they needed help.
Pediatric cardiologist Dr. Daisuke Kobayashi thought 3D printing might be the answer.
"I felt that this would be a great case for us to use this technology in order to give us a better idea of the structure," said Kobayashi.
They turned to a company called Materialise in Plymouth to create an exact model of Smith's aorta.
"This model is made out of a flexible, silicone-like material, and it's made off of a machine known as an Objet machine, which is a 3D printer that can create flexible models," explained Bryan Crutchfield, managing director at Materialise.
A model of this size and complexity costs about $500 to $2,000 to create and print, depending on the material doctors want. Once the computer work is done, it takes about 24 to 48 hours to print.
Crutchfield says most doctors are astonished when they receive the models.
"They're used to looking at 3D models on a 2D screen and while they can get rotation and they can visualize them from different angles, there's nothing quite like having the piece in your hands."
Doctors at Children's Hospital of Michigan used the model to practice in the cath lab, positioning the stent they hoped to use in Smith.
"The model really helped us to plan things, to try things out, and then in the end make it safer for Ariana," said Turner.
"We were not sure that how the stent will align along this tortuous vessel and after we did the testing prior to the actual case with Ariana, we become more confident," said Kobayashi.
Practice made perfect. Traveling through a vessel in Smith's leg, doctors were able to position the covered stent in her aorta, blocking off the aneurysm.
"I knew I was in good hands because they practiced and stuff," said Smith. "I thought it was cool. I don't think it's ever been done before, so I felt, like, special in a way."
"Her recovery time was two days versus what an open-heart surgery would have taken," said Foster. "I'm just very thankful and grateful that my daughter will be here. I tell them that all the time. 'Thank you for saving my daughter.'"
Smith will be followed closely, but doctors don't anticipate she will need surgery in the future.
As for the future of 3D printing: "In medicine we think the applications are really, virtually unlimited. It's just starting," said Crutchfield.
"I think this is just the tip of the iceberg," said Turner. "They've used 3D models in other organs, in the trachea, that sort of thing. The heart is really a great place to use it."
And what about that mother's instinct that lead to Smith's aneurysm being discovered?
"If you have that feeling or even if there's no symptoms, just get your child checked out," said Foster. "As parents, I just think we have just have gut feelings."
"I'm speechless," said Smith. "I wanna thank God a lot. It's a miracle."
To learn more about Children's Hospital of Michigan, click here.
To visit Materialise's website, click here.