Over 29,000 people received organ transplant in 2014. In the U.S. there are about 120 million people that are signed up to be an organ donor and on average about 79 people receive new organs from the transplant list every day. There is no denying how the statistics surrounding organ transplants have improved. However, there is still a shortage on organ donations that around 20 people die waiting for a donor. Fortunately, it seems like scientists are currently developing an ingenious way of procuring organs without the need for a donor. And by the looks of it the technology is well on its way into becoming a medical staple.
Just this week, researchers from Wake Forest School of Medicine in North Carolina published an academic paper detailing a new method of 3D printing that would allow the production of bones, muscles and cartilage. The team led by Dr. Anthony Athala dubbed the innovation "Integrated Tissue and Organ Printing System" or "ITOP." "ITOP" produces a number of different tissues that can be transplanted into another human being.
The scientists have since developed bone, cartilage and muscle using the ITOP system and have transplanted the organs to rats and mice. A few months after the procedure, the bone, cartilage and muscle tissue look impressively like natural tissues under the microscope.
Dr. Athala has since raved about the possibilities their development has opened up. According to him, science is very close to producing a technology that allows patients to use their own tissues in surgery.
"It is often frustrating for physicians to have patients receive a plastic or metal part during surgery knowing that the best replacement would have been the patient's own tissue. The results of this study bring us closer to the reality of using 3D printing to repair defects using the patient's own engineered tissue."