A novel approach to cardiac surgery

Stanford medical student Kevin Cyr is part of a team of researchers using 3D printing to build custom cardiac surgical devices. Second-year medical student Kevin Cyr is part of a team of Stanford researchers investigating new ways to survey electricity in the heart. The research has led to the development of cardiac surgical devices that could one day help patients who suffer from a common heart ailment. " I'm using 3D-printed tools to design cardiac-mapping catheters, devices used by surgeons to map the electrical activity of the heart and find disturbances," says Cyr. The research began a few years ago under the direction of Anson Lee , assistant professor of cardiothoracic surgery. Cyr, whose background is in bioengineering, joined the team last year as a student interested in developing new medical technologies that can transition from research to clinical practice. Their investigation is focused on atrial fibrillation, or AFib, a heart disorder characterized by irregular and often rapid heartbeats that disrupt the flow of blood from the heart to the rest of the body.