3D hybrid bioprinting of macrovascular structures

Thousands of people die each year due the cardiovascular health problems. The most common treatments for cardiovascular health diseases are autografts and blood vessel transplantations which has limitations due to lack of donors and the patient's conditions. Although there are several scaffold based studies about vascular tissue engineering, scaffold-based vascular grafts have some side effects including chronic inflammation, thrombosis and rejection after in-vivo implantation. Additionally, there are some problems with cell to cell interaction, the assembly and alignment of ECM components and the host response to scaffolds. Therefore, vascular tissue engineering studies tend towards scaffold-free techniques. In this paper, novel computer aided algorithms and methods are developed for 3D printing of scaffold-free macrovascular structures. An example aorta model is generated using imaging and segmentation software. The developed algorithms are implemented using Rhinoscript. In order to support printed cell aggregates, support structures with 'Cake' and 'Zigzag' patterns are developed and 3D printed. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.