Spare blood vessels could be useful in heart surgery, according to Science Translational Medicine.
Studies in dogs and baboons suggest that these dishes could be refrigerated for up to a year and used for each patient.
Bypasses, or coronary bypass, allow you to bypass narrowed coronary arteries. They are usually done by implanting blood vessels from other parts of the body. However, it is not always possible due to the health condition – hence the attempts to artificially manufacture the appropriate dishes.
Existing methods of growing blood vessels from a patient’s own cells are time-consuming – it takes many months to obtain them.
Experts from Humacyte, Brody School of Medicine and Duke University used a tube-shaped template that they filled with smooth muscle cells as they grew, these cells made their own collagen scaffold, and the template was destroyed. Then the scientists got rid of the muscle cells by destroying them with detergent. The resulting collagen tube is a ready-made vessel prosthesis that does not trigger a rejection reaction by the immune system.
Such tubes – after a year of storage – were implanted into baboons. During the six-month follow-up, they performed excellently – the blood flow was normal.
If the new vascular prostheses work well in humans (study scheduled for 2012), treatment of coronary artery disease could become much easier. Perhaps ligaments, skin and cartilage can be produced in a similar way. (PAP)