Dr.Munier Nazzal, a vascular surgeon and chief of the Division of Vascular, Endovascular Surgery and Wound Care of UToledo Health in Ohio, is working on an exciting bioprinting application: using 3D printing for wound care.“Most wounds heal on their own.
It may take some time or require minor surgery, but most cuts and abrasions are eventually going to heal.However, some wounds, particularly in patients with underlying medical conditions, fail to heal for months or even years.This technology is going to make a huge difference.
It’s almost like printing a puzzle piece.We’re able to make a graft that is an exact fit for the wound, and that graft is going to promote healing.It’s not magic, it’s not healing tomorrow, but it’s healing faster than we see from our traditional methods of treatment.
We’re very early on in this, but it has shown good results.” Using an Aplicor3D bioprinter by Tides Health, specifically made for wound care, Dr.Nazzal and his team are using the body’s own fat cells to make a personalized graft for a specific wound that is not healing.A fat sample is made into a bioink, while images and software are used to create a unique file for each wound.
Then a specific graft is 3D printed, which covers the wound with the exact shape and depth it needs. The graft then acts as a plaster that stimulates the healing of the skin underneath.The Aplicor3D system has a tablet application, which can generate files using AI, a scaffolding kit, and the printer.
Skin grafts can be anywhere from 1cm² – 128 cm² in size, and the system has been used in over 100 cases.Tides Health claims that the procedure can speed up healing, as the entire process can be done within an hour.In addition to the printer, Tides has many amniotic tissue grafts of placenta-derived grafting products as well.
The Aplicor3D machine was designed and developed by Korean firm Rokit Healthcare.Indeed, the entire platform solution is a Rokit suite of products that can be used for skin, cartilage, and kidney procedures.Rokit has demonstrated this product in ulcer care and other tissues.
The company has also published work demonstrating how adipose tissue can be used in ulcer wound care, and how a scaffold and cell structure could be used in wound care as well.Through local support and knowledge, Rokit can now be introduced by Tides to UToledo.This kind of reseller and relabeling relationship gives Rokit worldwide reach without having to invest too significantly in its global presence.
Meanwhile, Tides gets a product that is adjacent to its current portfolio, which it can exploit in the US.Even though the 3D printer could do much more, this is very much a wound care-related project, so the use of the system will be specific to wound care.This is an important shift, as bioprinters are slowing moving towards more production-related tasks.
Only a short while ago, these systems were mainly only research machines that were used to make lots of hypotheses and new structures.But here, we’re seeing a hospital use this printer for a very specific use and workflow, tasked with making custom wound care grafts, all day every day.More specific, production-oriented bioprinters could perhaps be much more efficient.
A machine built just for wound care may look very different than a general research machine.Perhaps not a lot of Z will be needed for example, or certain machine functions could be eliminated.For applications like burn care, meanwhile, a much bigger XY plane may be very advantageous.
Being used every day near patients and in production could also maybe put more emphasis on throughput and turnaround time of the machine.To me this development is something to be lauded.We know from LPBF, Material Extrusion, and SLA that production system needs are very different from those of research systems.
One of the reasons that LPBF has taken so long to commercialize is that for decades, most of the systems were purchased by researchers who just wanted more knobs to turn.Rokit and other firms would therefore do well to study Dr.Nazzal and his peers to find out what a specific skin plaster production system would look like.
The potential for bioprinting is enormous, but often it is hazy and ill-defined.Somewhere over the rainbow, bioprinting will be amazing, and this is an application in which patients, doctors, and hospitals can be helped today, but also build up the market for the future.Chronic wounds are on the rise, and caring for them is difficult, with uncertain outcomes and incidence around 2.21 per 1000 of the population.
With heavier, older, and more numerous people all spending more time in long-term care and hospitals for chronic wounds, this could be a nearly impossible issue for large health systems to treat.It would require hours of dressing and redressing, and often lead to infections or other complications, as well as discomfort and significant pain to patients.This one device, maybe purchased through a donation from a happy former patient–as was the case with UToledo Health–could really put a dent in the long-term chronic wound care problem.
Other hospitals could also follow suit.Perhaps we have now found the one application for bioprinting that takes the technology to the next level.It may not be the killer app, but it could be the level up app.
Think of jigs and fixtures in Material Extrusion, for example; this application was a gateway drug for many to adopt 3D printing in production aids.This skin graft bioprinting procedure could have a similar effect on bioprinting, making the industry much larger and more viable.Subscribe to Our Email Newsletter Stay up-to-date on all the latest news from the 3D printing industry and receive information and offers from third party vendors.
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