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Scientists create 3D-printed scaffold for ACL reconstruction

A new 3D-printed porous scaffold with bone regenerating abilities has been created to repair ruptured anterior cruciate ligaments, or ACL.

By Amy Wallace
Researchers have created a 3D-printed bioabsorbable scaffold for ruptured anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL, reconstruction and bone regeneration. Ruptured ACL injuries of the knee are often sports-related. File photo by Hugo Philpott/UPI
Researchers have created a 3D-printed bioabsorbable scaffold for ruptured anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL, reconstruction and bone regeneration. Ruptured ACL injuries of the knee are often sports-related. File photo by Hugo Philpott/UPI | License Photo

Feb. 27 (UPI) -- Researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., have designed a 3D-printed scaffold for reconstructing a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL, in the knee and engineered it with bone regenerating properties.

ACL injuries are some of the most common sports-related injuries and involve a sudden stop, jump or change in direction that tears the ACL.

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Torn ACLs are typically reconstructed using tendon grafts fixed with bioabsorbable implants, which are often complicated by incomplete bone filling upon degradation. Bone regeneration is a crucial part of recovery from ACL ruptures.

The porous scaffold was engineered to deliver the human bone-promoting protein morphogenetic protein 2, or rhBMP-2, over an extended period of time to improve bone regeneration.

The strength of the scaffold was tested in a rabbit ACL reconstruction and found to be effective.

"This work is a good example of the fusion of technologies -- controlled release drug delivery and 3D-printing," Dr. Peter C. Johnson, principal at MedSurgPI, president and CEO, Scintellix and co-editor-in-chief of the journal Tissue Engineering.

The study was published in Tissue Engineering.

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