Kaitlyne McNamara has a new bladder. The sixteen-year-old girl is one of seven young patients who have received a lab-grown bladder in the last several years.
All of the patients receiving the lab-grown bladders were born with a bladder disease that causes high urinary pressure and can lead to life-threatening damage to the kidney.
Kaitlyne's kidneys were close to failing before she had the surgery. But five years later her kidneys are working and she has a new lease on life.
Patients with the lab-grown bladders still must use tubes regularly to empty them. But they do not suffer as much leakage and can stay dry for several hours at a time.
These lab-grown bladders were created by taking a very small portion of the patient’s tissue from their existing bladder. They then used that tissue to grow the new bladder and muscle cells in the lab.
Dr. Anthony Atala, the director at the Wake Forest Health Sciences Institute for Regenerative Medicine, explains the process. \"The way that we engineer these organs is we actually manufacture a scaffold in the shape of a bladder -- a mold, if you will, that is three-dimensional. We then take the cells and seed the cells onto the mold one layer at a time -- very much like making a layered cake. You then place that structure into the oven which is the incubator and approximately a few weeks later you have your organ which is ready to be implanted.\"
发表于 2006-4-24 19:06:53