Embedded Files
Scientific Problem Statement: Otolaryngologists responsible for pediatric patients with tracheal stenosis or tracheomalacia face difficulties in administering accessible, inexpensive, personalized treatments without resorting to intrusive surgical methods for deployment or removal.
What this really means: Child patients whose airways are collapsing need an improved, non-intrusive treatment to keep their airways open.
Tracheal Stenosis and Tracheomalacia
Tracheal Stenosis and Tracheomalacia
Definition: Diseases which cause the narrowing or collapse of the airway. This may be due to scar tissue, malformation of the cartilage during fetal or childhood development, tumors, or side effects from other medical procedures such as intubation. (1)
Current Treatments Include: aortopexy, an invasive surgical procedure, or metal or silicone stents. (2)(3)
Complications of Current Treatments: Surgeries are highly invasive and are prone to negative effects, including infection and potential patient mortality. Metal and silicone stents may experience migration which causes further blockage of the airway and cause granulation tissues around the stents. (4) Additionally, if the stents need to be removed and replaced for a given patient, the removal surgery causes bleeding and scarring in the airways.
Image Rights go to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. (5)
What We Set Out to Accomplish
What We Set Out to Accomplish
Developing a 3D-Printed, Bioresorbable, Tracheal Stent:
3D-Printed: Allows the size of the stent to be customized to the patient using CAD software. Also facilitates sharing of medical resources between hospitals so long as they have a hobby-grad 3D printer.
Bioresorbable: Degrades in the body over time, eliminating the need for removal surgeries that cause scarring for traditional stent types
Tracheal Stent: A device which provides the mechanical support to keep narrowed airways open
Experimental Workflow
(A) Treat with NaOH. (A1/2) Immerse in 1x PBS in 15mL tubes.
(B) Weigh stents, visually note breakages and deformations.
(C) Apply localized linear/radial compression.
(D) Obtain raw data from Instron and enter it into the MATLAB script.
(E) Obtain stress-strain curves and calculate Young’s Modulus from MATLAB.
(F) Process data is Prism and interpret significant differences between groups. Steps B-E were done at 4 week intervals for 20 weeks. Step A was only done on Day 0 and Step F was only done after completion of the 20 weeks.
See our Subprojects Tabs for more information about and results from these tests!
References:
(1) Hysinger, E. B. et al. Paediatr. Respir. Rev. 17, 9–15 (2016)
(2) Torre, M. et al. Ital. J. Pediatr. 38, 1 (2012)
(3) Xu, J. et al. Drug Dev. Ind. Pharm. 45, 1–10 (2019)
(4) Stramiello, J. A. et al. Int. J. Pediatr. Otorhinolaryngol. 139, 110405 (2020)
(5) https://www.chop.edu/conditions-diseases/subglottic-stenosis
Page Created by Kendra Worthington
Page updated
Report abuse