Silicon as soft material for three-dimensional phantom of gallbladder in purpose of anatomical education tools

Three-dimensional (3D) phantom has important roles for learning media in many fields, including in medical education. From the literature review, one of the limitations from current 3D medical phantom development is to provide the phantom that similar texture or hand-feel to the replicated organs. This study aims to produce a 3D medical phantom with an approach to have similar texture to the intended organ with study case of gallbladder. A medical imaging data of magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography (MRCP) in the format of digital imaging and communications in medicine (DICOM) was acquired. The data contains whole upper body area of a patient and need to be segmented to get the region of interest (ROI), particularly gallbladder. The segmented 3D gallbladder model was the produced using an injected silicon mixture. The result of 3D silicon gallbladder was tested qualitatively and quantitatively to compare to the original organ. Although, the evaluation process results in the slight differences between the phantom and the segmentation measurement outcomes, however, the qualified test by the medical expert stated that the phantom could provide similar morphology and touch as the real gallbladder. To improve the research, the shrinkage phenomena during the silicone curing should be considered in the future. Overall, this research could be a guide-step for medical engineers to realize the medical phantom for any internal organ using soft-material.