gms | German Medical Science

Breast reconstruction and cosmetic breast augmentation techniques have improved markedly over the last few decades, enabling surgeons to offer women a wide range of surgical options. But despite significant progress in such surgery techniques, complication rates remain high. Especially breast implant-based reconstructions or augmentations lead to foreign body reactions that inevitability cause complications at some point in the patient’s life (for young patients this implies close to 100% complication/revision rates). On the other hand, autologous techniques, such as microsurgical free-flap operations or fat grafting techniques, have either high initial complication rates due to the complex nature and invasiveness of the surgery or can’t achieve stable volume and shape results.

In this talk want to present a new technique that is based on Scaffold Guided Tissue Engineering (SGTE). SGTE uses a combination of scaffold biomanufacturing and lipo-aspirated fat/stem-cell grafting methods. SGTE allows sufficient breast volume and shape to be achieved with the added benefit of no long-term foreign body reactions, removing the risk of foreign body related complications. This bio scaffold-based reconstruction/augmentation technique can additionally be used as a drug delivery system. Scaffolds can inter-individually be designed for breast defects after lumpectomies, to reconstruct breast tissue after mastectomies or for augmentation purposes. Volume, shape, projection and cohesiveness as well as resobtion profiles can be individually be adjusted.

We want to present our methods and techniques involved in the scaffold engineering process, laboratory results, 3D implications and our findings from a pilot in-vivo animal study on pigs with 60 first Generation scaffold implants.