3D-printed blood vessels could help thousands of heart bypass patients, say scientists
3D-printed blood vessels which could aid thousands of heart bypass operations have been developed by Edinburgh scientists.
The artificial tubes are printed using a water-based gel and coated with tiny polyester fibres.
Currently, surgeons often remove leg, arm or chest veins when they need to replace vessels in the heart, but the process can be painful and risks an infection as well as long-term scarring.
Tests have shown that the synthetic veins are as strong as natural blood vessels and could offer an alternative for the 20,000 heart bypass operations performed each year in England.
The team said the tubes could also replace synthetic grafts which can fail because they are hard to integrate into the body.
Dr Norbert Radacsi, the principal investigator, said: “The results from our research address a long-standing challenge in the field of vascular tissue engineering – to produce a conduit that has similar biomechanical properties to that of human veins.
“With continued support and collaboration, the vision of improved treatment options for patients with cardiovascular disease could become a reality.”
The team, led by the University of Edinburgh’s school of engineering, in collaboration with Heriot-Watt University, now plans to work with the university’s Roslin Institute to carry out trials of the blood vessels in animals, followed by trials in humans.
Dr Faraz Fazal, the lead author, said: “Our hybrid technique opens up new and exciting possibilities for the fabrication of tubular constructs in tissue engineering.”
Artificial veins can trigger immune reaction
In heart bypass surgery, new veins must be used to re-route the blood flow from a damaged or blocked artery.
Artificial blood vessels have been used for more than 50 years in people who cannot use grafts because they do not have healthy veins for transplant.
But they are often stiff, degenerate quickly, and they cannot be made small enough for use in all parts of the body.
Because they are a foreign object, they can also sometimes trigger an immune reaction causing rejection.
Previously, synthetic vessels could only be made with a diameter of around 6mm but the new 3D printed veins can be as small as 1mm.
Writing in Advanced Materials Technologies, the team concluded: “Based on the biomechanical behavior, the engineered grafts provide a sound basis for in vivo evaluation.
“Therefore, this hybrid approach could be used to fabricate vascular grafts having suitable biomechanical properties for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases.”