Zurich researchers develop 3D-printed heart patch

(CONNECT) An interdisciplinary research team from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH) and the University Hospital Zurich has developed the Reinforced Cardiac Patch (RCPatch), a new type of three-dimensional heart patch. The RCPatch consists of a fine-meshed mesh that seals heart damage, a 3D-printed, polymer-based, degradable support structure and a hydrogel that is colonized with heart muscle cells, according to a press release. 

The supporting structure and the mesh are enriched with hydrogel, which enables complete adhesion to the surrounding heart muscle cells. "The great advantage of the patch is that the supporting scaffold dissolves completely after the cells have bonded with the tissue. This means that no foreign body remains," says Lewis Jones from the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering at ETH, first author of the study, in the press release. Bovine pericardial patches, or BPPs for short, are biologically inactive, non-degradable and remain in the heart as a foreign body. This causes undesirable reactions such as calcification, thrombosis and inflammation. 

Initial preclinical tests on pig models show that the patch withstands the high pressure on the heart, prevents bleeding and restores heart function after a heart attack. "We were able to show that the patch develops well and that the structure resists even under real blood pressure," explains Ronert Katzschmann, co-leader of the research team and assistant professor at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering at ETH. In the future, the researchers will investigate the patch in longer-term animal studies; in the long term, it will be used as an alternative to bovine pericardial patches for human myocardial damage. 

Heart patches are used for heart wall tears, which can be caused by severe heart attacks and the resulting lack of oxygen to the heart muscle. ce/yes