3D Printed Phantoms in Medical Imaging: Fabrication Techniques and Recent Research Trends

초록

Medical imaging plays a crucial role in modern medicine, including disease diagnosis, treatment planning, treatment response assessment, and prognosis prediction. With the increasing demand for quantitative imaging analysis and the rapid development of artificial intelligence-based image analysis techniques, the reproducibility and standardization of imaging data have become increasingly important. However, patient imaging data often exhibit anatomical variability, differences in acquisition conditions, and ethical limitations, making it difficult to establish controlled and repeatable validation environments. To address these limitations, physical phantoms that mimic the anatomical and physical properties of human tissues have been widely used in medical imaging research. Recently, 3D printing technology has attracted considerable attention for phantom fabrication because it enables the reproduction of realistic anatomical structures derived from medical imaging data. By combining various printing technologies and Tissue-mimicking materials, 3D printed phantoms have been applied to multiple imaging modalities, including CT, MRI, and PET/SPECT, for system performance evaluation, quantitative imaging validation, and algorithm testing. This review summarizes fabrication techniques, material characteristics, major applications, and recent research trends of 3D printed phantoms in medical imaging and discusses their future research directions.

키워드