A team of British cancer researchers is using 3D printing to create customized models of cancerous growths in the human body aimed at allowing doctors to target tumors for precise treatment.

They call them “phantoms,” 3D printed replicas of tumors and and organs which are constructed from CT scan data collected from patients during treatment. The plastic molds can be filled with liquid, and that lets doctors and technicians gauge the location and flow of radio pharmaceuticals within the body.

 Preliminary studies done by the team at ICR London can help map the exact position of a given tumor within a patient’s body, and initial tests have discovered that such models allowed the dose of radiation a patient has received to be calculated more accurately.

The tumor replicas were constructed of plastic and printed by researchers at the Joint Department of Physics at the ICR and The Royal Marsden. The researchers say the models were once made by hand before the teams turned to 3D printing technology to streamline the process.

For the most part, the models are used in the treatment of thyroid cancer, adult neuroendocrine tumors, cases of childhood neuroblastoma and bone metastases which arise from cases of prostate cancer.