Pessary rings are passive medical devices used to support the internal pelvic organs from protruding. It is the first line of treatment to relieve patients from pelvic organ prolapse (or POP) symptoms. A successful fitting can significantly reduce the negative effects on the patient's life. However, the issue of fitting the ring incorrectly has affected around 38% of the patients, resulting in unsuccessful pessary treatment.
Examining this issue is challenging and mostly empirical. Increasing the ultrasound (US) visibility of such devices is then helpful since those are readily available at most practices. Fabrication of such structures by Additive Manufacturing (AM) has the prospects of realizing pessaries with personalized characteristics and thus has the possibility to increase the success rate of the treatment. To achieve this, it is important to examine conventional pessaries in both successful and unsuccessful cases and gather information on the pessary position and orientation. Currently, conventional rings are made out of soft silicone and have poor US visibility. Therefore, in this study, we aim to explore AM-compatible methods to increase their US visibility.