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Engineer Yi Hong is developing a new treatment for the vascular anomalies in childhood by 3D printing blood vessels. The promising technology will help many children who have to undergo multiple invasive surgeries for every graft.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded Engineer Yi Hong from the University of Texas-Arlington and his partner Guohao Dai from the Northeastern University the Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant of $211,000 for their tech. The revolutionary embrace of the medical community with the technology such as 3D printing gives an auspicious future to more progressive developments as reported by the National Institutes of Health.

3D Printing Blood Vessels

The partnership of Hong and Dai focuses on finding a treatment for the vascular anomalies in childhood that is more difficult to treat compared to adults. To do this, they are working on creating 3D-printed materials that can reconstruct into elastic-capable and patient-specific blood vessels according to 3ders.

Because of the material's flexibility, it can be combined with a person's cells. This would make a fixture among biological blood vessels which will reduce the need for the many invasive surgeries that are used today to treat vascular anomaly on children.

Children, as compared to adults, grow significantly faster than grafts. That means the grafts will have to be replaced which can only be done through operations with risks of thrombosis or the formation of blood clot in the blood vessels.

Vascular Abnormalities in Children

A vascular anomaly is some sort of a birthmark caused by a vascular development disorder. Since it locally happens in the blood vessels, it can easily affect a person's vasculature which includes arteries, capillaries, lymphatics, and veins or even a combination of them.

Some of these vascular abnormalities include aneurysms, arteriovenous malformations, and the moyamoya disease. These conditions lead people with a vascular anomaly to suffer from headaches, seizures and, in worse cases, coma.

From the symptoms to the invasive treatments, children really have it hard with the vascular anomalies in childhood. That is why Hong's new treatment is something being awaited by the medical world to be an answer to improving lives of affected children.