Athletes who have faced injuries related to sports events may find treatment through the 3D-printed artificial tissues developed by researchers from Rice University and the University of Maryland.
"The scaffolds replicate the physical characteristics of osteochondral tissue hard bone beneath a compressible layer of cartilage that appears as the smooth surface on the ends of long bones," according to Tribute India.
The performance of athletes is affected when bones get injured even with small cracks. Disabling arthritis can also be a result of these injuries. Their findings were published in the journal Acta Biomaterialia that reported the difficulty of reproducing the gradient nature of cartilage-into-bone and its porosity.
"Athletes are disproportionately affected by these injuries, but they can affect everybody," said Sean Bittner, a graduate student at Rice University.
"I think this will be a powerful tool to help people with common sports injuries," Bittner said in a statement. The process allows copying the tissue that transforms into bone from cartilage.
The scientists created the scaffold by printing polymer mixtures for the cartilage and a ceramic for the bone with embedded pores that are permeable with the blood vessels and cells of the patient, thereby allowing these to be integrated into the bone and the cartilage.
"For the most part, the composition will be the same from patient to patient. There's porosity included so vasculature can grow in from the native bone. We don't have to fabricate the blood vessels ourselves," Bittner said.
Recommendations for future researches include how to print an osteochondral implant that is compatible with the patient.
