Saga

Saga University in southwestern Japan has said it will transplant artificial blood vessels made by a three-dimensional printer to dialysis patients in an upcoming clinical study.

The university's research team is likely to be the world's first to create blood vessels exclusively from cells of patients themselves, key member Prof. Koichi Nakayama said Tuesday.

Compared with existing artificial blood vessels produced from resin or other man-made materials, 3-D printed vessels from human cells are believed to carry a lower risk of bacterial infection, according to the team.

In dialysis treatment, an artificial tube, or a shunt, is created to allow blood flow between a patient's body and a dialysis machine.

Shunts, regardless of whether they are artificial tubes or blood vessels taken from other parts of the body, get weaker following repeated dialyses, raising the risk of varix development and bacterial infection.

The team will collect skin cells from the groins of kidney failure and other patients. From the cells, it will create 5-centimeter-long artificial blood vessels with an inner diameter of 5 millimeters using a 3-D printer for autologous transplantation to the three patients.

The use of such vessels is expected to lower the risk of problems caused by conventional shunts, according to the team.

The first of the transplantation surgeries is expected to be performed within the current fiscal year at the earliest. The team plans to check for about six months whether there is any bleeding from the places onto which 3-D printed vessels are grafted.

Jiji Press