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High-Fidelity Tissue Engineering of Patient-Specific Auricles for Reconstruction of Pediatric Microtia and Other Auricular Deformities

Reiffel, AJ and Kafka, C and Hernandez, KA and Popa, S and Perez, JL and Zhou, S and Pramanik, S and Brown, BN and Ryu, WS and Bonassar, LJ and Spector, JA (2013) High-Fidelity Tissue Engineering of Patient-Specific Auricles for Reconstruction of Pediatric Microtia and Other Auricular Deformities. PLoS ONE, 8 (2).

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Abstract

Introduction: Autologous techniques for the reconstruction of pediatric microtia often result in suboptimal aesthetic outcomes and morbidity at the costal cartilage donor site. We therefore sought to combine digital photogrammetry with CAD/CAM techniques to develop collagen type I hydrogel scaffolds and their respective molds that would precisely mimic the normal anatomy of the patient-specific external ear as well as recapitulate the complex biomechanical properties of native auricular elastic cartilage while avoiding the morbidity of traditional autologous reconstructions. Methods: Three-dimensional structures of normal pediatric ears were digitized and converted to virtual solids for mold design. Image-based synthetic reconstructions of these ears were fabricated from collagen type I hydrogels. Half were seeded with bovine auricular chondrocytes. Cellular and acellular constructs were implanted subcutaneously in the dorsa of nude rats and harvested after 1 and 3 months. Results: Gross inspection revealed that acellular implants had significantly decreased in size by 1 month. Cellular constructs retained their contour/projection from the animals' dorsa, even after 3 months. Post-harvest weight of cellular constructs was significantly greater than that of acellular constructs after 1 and 3 months. Safranin O-staining revealed that cellular constructs demonstrated evidence of a self-assembled perichondrial layer and copious neocartilage deposition. Verhoeff staining of 1 month cellular constructs revealed de novo elastic cartilage deposition, which was even more extensive and robust after 3 months. The equilibrium modulus and hydraulic permeability of cellular constructs were not significantly different from native bovine auricular cartilage after 3 months. Conclusions: We have developed high-fidelity, biocompatible, patient-specific tissue-engineered constructs for auricular reconstruction which largely mimic the native auricle both biomechanically and histologically, even after an extended period of implantation. This strategy holds immense potential for durable patient-specific tissue-engineered anatomically proper auricular reconstructions in the future. © 2013 Reiffel et al.

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Details

Item Type: Article
Status: Published
Creators/Authors:
CreatorsEmailPitt UsernameORCID
Reiffel, AJ
Kafka, C
Hernandez, KA
Popa, S
Perez, JL
Zhou, S
Pramanik, S
Brown, BNbryanbrown@pitt.eduBNB9
Ryu, WS
Bonassar, LJ
Spector, JA
Date: 20 February 2013
Date Type: Publication
Journal or Publication Title: PLoS ONE
Volume: 8
Number: 2
DOI or Unique Handle: 10.1371/journal.pone.0056506
Schools and Programs: Swanson School of Engineering > Bioengineering
Refereed: Yes
Other ID: NLM PMC3577892
PubMed Central ID: PMC3577892
PubMed ID: 23437148
Date Deposited: 28 Mar 2013 16:46
Last Modified: 02 Feb 2019 13:55
URI: http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/17870

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