1 . Brain aneurysms (脑动脉瘤) affect about one in every 50 Americans and can lead to serious medical emergencies, including stroke, brain damage and death if they burst. Existing treatment options are limited and often invasive(扩散), and surgical outcomes can vary widely from person to person.
Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have become the first team to produce a living, bioprinted aneurysm outside of the human body, perform a medical procedure on it and observe it respond and heal as it would in an actual human brain.
“While there are a lot of promising treatment options, some still have a long way to go,” said Moya, the project’s principal investigator. One common treatment is “clipping”-attaching a metal clip to the base of the aneurysm to redirect blood flow away and keep it from bursting. The procedure is highly invasive, requiring surgeons to open up the skull and expose the brain. A more common and less invasive treatment is the metal coiling (缠绕) approach. The downside to “coiling” is that success is highly dependent on a variety of factors, including the geometry of the patient’s blood vessels, which differ from one person to the next, researchers said.
Animal models aren't necessarily the best way to try out these options, as they lack direct observation of treatment effects and have uncontrollable aneurysm geometries. Unlike animal models, LLNL’s platform allows scientists to directly measure the liquid.
To take some of the guesswork out of aneurysm treatments, Hynes, the original principal investigator, realized researchers would need a way to validate more predictive 3D models that take patient geometry into account by bioprinting with human cells.
By combining the 3D-printed platform with computational models, researchers said they've developed a potential tool for surgeons to pre-select the best coil types, and perform “testruns” of procedures before attempting them on the human patient “What’s exciting is that this platform copies the actual blood vessels and also is strong enough to handle a coiling procedure. This makes it ideal to be used as a training platform for surgeons.” Moya said.
In addition to a testbed for surgical training, researchers said the platform has potential for improving the understanding of basic biology and the post-surgery healing response. While early results are promising, the researchers cautioned there's a long way to go before the platform sees application in the clinical environment.
1. What is the living, bioprinted aneurysm?| A．It’s a set of surgical instrument. |
| B．It’s a tissue transplanted in human body. |
| C．It’s a training platform for surgeons. |
| D．It’s a treatment option for brain aneurysms. |
| A．The procedure is highly invasive. |
| B．It may lead to serious medical emergencies. |
| C．Surgical outcomes vary widely from person to person. |
| D．It completely depends on the geometry of the patient’s blood vessels. |
| A．It’s difficult to observe and gather data on them. |
| B．They are not strong enough to handle a coiling procedure. |
| C．Their aneurysm geometries are totally-different from human's. |
| D．The potential response to the treatment options are uncontrollable. |
| A．The previous experiments have been in vain. |
| B．The platform has improved the understanding of basic biology. |
| C．Brain aneurysms can be cured without any risk with the platform. |
| D．More needs to be done before applying the platform in the clinical environment. |
