With the recent passing of possibly the world’s greatest advocate for breast cancer, Olivia Newton John, MF looks at the latest Australian breakthrough in this field.
An Australian-first surgery at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital (RBWH) has paved the way for a safer alternative to silicone implants for women requiring breast reconstruction surgery.
On June 23rd Surgeons Professor Owen Ung, Director of the Comprehensive Breast Cancer Institute, and Dr Michael Wagels, the Director of the Herston Biofabrication Institute, successfully implanted a bioresorbable scaffold which was then injected with the patient’s own fat cells.
The scaffold, a 3D printed medical-grade polycaprolactone-PCL produced in Germany by medtech company BellaSeno, will completely dissolve and metabolise in the body, leaving the patient with nothing but their own natural tissue within two years.
Professor Ung said their first clinical trial patient, Moana Staunton, was just one of many women who had experienced breast implant illness, noting a range of unexplained symptoms she believed were linked to her implants.
“But it’s not just those experiencing complications from their implants that will benefit, as we roll out our clinical trial in patients just like Moana,” Professor Ung explained.
“We will be moving into further studies for those who have experienced cancer, changing the lives of women who require a mastectomy and have limited reconstructive options until now.
“We are still in Phase One of clinical trials, but this work has hugely promising implications for women all over the world.”
Dr Wagels added that the work was made possible through years of research, first started at Queensland University of Technology (QUT).
“Our Herston Biofabrication Institute colleague and QUT researcher Professor Dietmar Hutmacher has, over many years, been instrumental in developing the scientific approach and foundation to get us to this point – the first successful realization of this ground-breaking research in an actual patient,” Dr Wagels said.
Professor Hutmacher, Director of QUT’s ARC Centre in Additive Biomanufacturing, has stated in his research that the fundamental concept underlying scaffold-guided tissue engineering is to combine an artificial matrix with living cells to form a ‘tissue engineering construct (TEC)’ that promotes the repair and regeneration of tissues.
“The convergence of 3D-printed fibres selected from a design library and biodegradable interpenetrating polymer networks (IPNs) result in biomimetic tissue engineered constructs (bTECs) with fully tuneable properties that can match specific tissue requirements,” he explained.[1]
Mohit Chhaya, co-founder and CEO of BellaSeno, shared that the regenerative breast scaffold procedure was an exciting milestone in plans to ultimately design and manufacture the new implants in Australia.
“Our goal is to further advance novel products in the field of natural tissue and bone reconstruction, working with our key partners in Australia,” Dr Chhaya said, speaking with the RBWH Foundation on August 4.
“While this scaffold was made in Germany, we hope to soon be in Australia to provide this novel new medical solution to hundreds of thousands of breast cancer patients, avoiding the risks associated with implanting permanent foreign materials like silicone in the body.”
[1] Bas O, D’Angella D, Baldwin JG, Castro NJ, Wunner FM, Saidy NT, Kollmannsberger S, Reali A, Rank E, De-Juan-Pardo EM, Hutmacher DW. An Integrated Design, Material, and Fabrication Platform for Engineering Biomechanically and Biologically Functional Soft Tissues. ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2017 Sep 6;9(35):29430-29437. doi: 10.1021/acsami.7b08617. Epub 2017 Aug 23. PMID: 28816441.