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Does the vascular graft of the future consist of three layers?

Does the vascular graft of the future consist of three layers?

The future of the vascular graft may lay in a tri-layered composite, according to researchers from Shanghai University. In AIP Advances the researchers describe why this type of graft could both possess mechanical strength and could promote new cell growth. This could mean the new type of graft would leave behind more rigid new blood vessels than the currently used types.

The traditional graft is an existing vessel from the patient's own body or from a suitable donor. The disadvantages of this graft are the limited supply of usable bloodvessels in a patient's body, and the fact that these vessels might be afflicted by the same underlying conditions that necessitated the graft in the first place. That's why a lot of research is done towards developing synthetic vessels, which currently consist of two layers. The idea is that a synthetic vessel should mimic a natural one, allowing new cells to grow around it and then degrade, thereby creating a new vessel.

There is, however, a fly in the ointment: the resulting structure is not rigid enough. To compensate for this, Yuanyuan Liu and her colleagues designed a three-layer model using micro-imprinting and electro-spinning. The researches seeded the designed scaffold with rat fibroblast cells and found that the new structure possessed both mechanical strength and promoted new cell growth. While a lot of research of the new design has to be done before human trials are possible, Liu and her group are optimistic about the future of their research. The next step in the project is to test the implants in an animal model, to observe the structure's efficacy with live vascular cells.

Source: AIP Advances

MedZine writes twice per week about notable science.

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