For the first time in the world, Russian doctors performed a 3D-printed operation on a human

At the hospital named after Burdenko used a bioprinter to replace the soft tissue of the patient’s forearm

The world’s first bioprinting operation on a patient was performed by doctors at the Main Military Clinical Hospital named after. Academician N. N. Burdenko. Using a robotic arm, they printed a matrix with “bioink” in the forearm to replace a large soft tissue defect.

The bioprinter, consisting of a robotic arm, a bioprinting system and computer vision, was developed by scientists from NUST MISIS and the pioneer company of Russian bioprinting.

According to the 1st qualification category orthopedic traumatologist, surgeon Vladimir Besedin, who supervised the operation, it was performed on the patient’s forearm, where soft tissue replacement was required.

First of all, it was necessary to develop a trajectory for delivering the biopolymer directly into the wound – this process was programmed right in the hospital by a university specialist after scanning the site of the forearm injury.

Afterwards, the operation itself began: a robotic arm applied a matrix of bioink to the wound site to replace the soft tissue defect.

Help “MK”. Bioink is a composition that is a highly purified concentrated sterile solution of collagen and the patient’s own cells, previously extracted from his bone marrow.

“This technique was used for the first time,” says Besedin. – It is especially relevant in case of multiple shrapnel wounds of the extremities, when the donor resource is limited.

According to the surgeon, in the future, when a patient is admitted with extensive wounds, doctors plan to scan the entire body and replace the missing soft tissues using this method. Delivery of bioink to the wound using a robotic arm will make it possible to avoid the need for preliminary cultivation of patient tissue equivalents, which will significantly speed up the healing process.

Help “MK”

Bioprinting is a technology for creating three-dimensional cell-based models using 3D printing, which preserves the functions and viability of cells. The first patent related to this technology was filed in 2006 in the USA. The bioprinter appeared in Russia in 2014. It can be used to bioprint various organs and tissues. The peculiarity of this method is that it helps solve the problem of blood supply to the implant. The patient’s own cells migrate into the printed tissue-engineered structure, which participate in the formation of blood vessels, as well as capillaries from the tissue surrounding the defect.