Surgeons at Duke University Hospital Implant Bioengineered Vein Into First US Patient

A team of Doctors at Duke University in United States, created a bioengineered blood vessel and transplanted it into the arm of patient with end stage kidney disease. This is a major step forward for tissue engineering, and first of its kind in the US and worldwide. The vein was engineered by “cultivating donated human cells on a tubular scaffold to form a vessel. The vessel is then cleansed of the qualities that might trigger an immune response.”The scaffold simply supports to grow in to fully-formed vessel, it’s said that the veins performed better than other synthetic and animal-based implants. Once completed, the new vein is “scrubbed” of cellular properties that might trigger an immune response and subsequent rejection in a patient. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently approved a phase 1 trial for sizable number of kidney dialysis patients in the United States.

The main focus for this procedure in arms of kidney hemodialysis patients, is to provide speed flow during treatments which often needed. The bioengineered blood vessel could replace the current options (Synthetic vascular grafts) which is prone to clotting, leading to frequent hospitalizations. “The technique might one day yield blood vessels for other procedures” “We hope this sets the groundwork for how these things can be grown, how they can incorporate into the host, and how they can avoid being rejected immunologically,” said Jeffrey Lawson, MD, PhD. No doubt, this looks like a good start for better things to come in the tissue engineering, for now,Duke researchers enrolled the first 20 U.S. patient to serve as study leaders. For more coverage, see the source link after the break.
Source: Duke University