Engineers manufacture surgical ‘duct tape’ as a substitute to sutures

A staple on any engineer’s workbench, duct tape is a transient and proper fix for cracks and tears in many structural materials. MIT engineers agree with now developed a roughly surgical duct tape—a stable, versatile, and biocompatible sticky patch that would also even be with out dispute and snappy applied to biological tissues and organs to aid seal tears and wounds.

Admire duct tape, the unusual patch is sticky on one facet and peaceable on the opposite. In its most modern formula, the adhesive is targeted to seal defects in the gastrointestinal tract, which the engineers picture because the physique’s occupy biological ductwork.

In diverse experiments, the crew has proven the patch can even even be snappy caught to gargantuan tears and punctures in the colon, abdominal, and intestines of varied animal devices. The adhesive binds strongly to tissues within several seconds and holds for over a month. It’s miles additionally versatile, in a location to assemble bigger and contract with a functioning organ as it heals. As soon as an hurt is fully healed, the patch step by step degrades with out inflicting irritation or sticking to surrounding tissues.

The crew envisions the surgical sticky patch may maybe in the end be stocked in working rooms and feeble as a speedily and protected substitute or reinforcement at hand-sewn sutures to restore leaks and tears in the gut and other biological tissues.

“We contemplate this surgical tape is a factual immoral technology to be made into an right, off-the-shelf product,” says Hyunwoo Yuk, a research scientist in MIT’s Division of Mechanical Engineering. “Surgeons may maybe order it as they order duct tape in the nonsurgical world. It would not need any preparation or prior step. Correct seize it out, originate, and order.”

Yuk, the quest for’s co-lead and co-corresponding author, and his colleagues agree with published their leads to the journal Science Translational Remedy. Diversified co-authors embody MIT postdoc and lead author Jingjing Wu; carrying out supervisor and co-corresponding author Xuanhe Zhao, who’s a professor of mechanical engineering and of civil and environmental engineering at MIT; and collaborators from the Mayo Hospital and the Southern University of Science and Skills.

A gut instinct

The unusual surgical duct tape builds on the crew’s 2019 form for a double-sided tape. That early iteration comprised a single layer that turned into as soon as sticky on both facet and designed to enroll in two moist surfaces together.

The adhesive turned into as soon as made from polyacrylic acid, an absorbent enviornment cloth demonstrate in diapers, which starts out dry and absorbs moisture when in contact with a moist ground or tissue, snappy sticking to the tissue in the system. The researchers blended into the realm cloth NHS esters, chemical substances that can bind with proteins in the tissue to manufacture stronger bonds. At final, they bolstered the adhesive with gelatin or chitosan—pure ingredients that saved the tape’s form.

The researchers learned the double-sided tape strongly bonded assorted tissues together. But when consulting with surgeons, they realized that a single-sided model may maybe assemble a extra purposeful affect.

“In purposeful cases, it’s no longer overall to agree with to stick two tissues together —organs can even merely unruffled be become independent from each other,” Wu says. “One suggestion turned into as soon as to make order of this sticky part to restore leaks and defects in the gut.”

Surgeons on the general restore leaks and tears in the gastrointestinal tract with surgical sutures. But stitching the stitches requires precision and practising, and following surgical treatment the sutures can enviornment off scarring across the hurt. The tissue between stitches may maybe additionally budge, inflicting secondary leakages that would consequence in sepsis.

“We thought, maybe we would turn our sticky part right into a product to restore gut leaks, equivalent to sealing pipes with duct tape,” Wu says. “That pushed us toward one thing extra admire single-sided tape.”

Connected tape, unusual tricks

The researchers first tuned their adhesive recipe, replacing gelatin and chitosan with a longer-lasting hydrogel—in this case, polyvinyl alcohol. This swap saved the adhesive bodily stable for over a month, long sufficient for a abnormal gut hurt to heal. They additionally added a second, nonsticky top layer to motivate the patch from sticking to surrounding tissue. This sediment turned into as soon as made from a biodegradable polyurethane that has in regards to the identical stretch and stiffness of pure gut tissue.

“We don’t desire the patch to be weaker than tissue because in any other case it may maybe well maybe risk bursting,” Yuk says. “We additionally don’t desire it to be stiffer because it may maybe well maybe limit the peristaltic movement in guts that’s obligatory for digestion.”

In preliminary assessments, the patch did follow tissues, but it additionally swelled, factual as a fully moist, hydrogel-basically basically based diaper would. This swelling stretched the tape and the underlying budge it turned into as soon as intended to seal.

“It turned into as soon as almost an very now potentially not enviornment because hydrogel naturally swells,” Yuk says. “But we did a straightforward trick: We prestretched the adhesive layer a bit, then launched the nonadhesive layer, in instruct that after applied to a tissue, that prestretching cancels out the swelling.”

The crew then applied experiments to confirm the patch’s properties and efficiency. When the patch turned into as soon as placed in a convention with human epithelial cells, the cells persevered to grow, displaying that the patch is biocompatible. When implanted under the pores and skin of rats, the patch biodegraded after about 12 weeks, and not utilizing a poisonous effects.

The researchers additionally applied the patch to defects in the animals’ colons and stomachs, and learned it maintained a stable bond because the injuries fully healed. It additionally produced minimal scarring and irritation in contrast with repairs made with primitive sutures.

At final, the crew applied the patch over colon defects in pigs, and seen that the animals persevered to feed on the general, and not utilizing a fever, lethargy, or other negative smartly being effects. After four weeks, the defects fully healed, and not utilizing a mark of secondary leakage.

Taken together, the experiments suggest that the surgical patch may maybe doubtlessly safely restore gastrointestinal injuries, and can be applied factual as with out dispute as industrial duct tape. Yuk and Zhao are further increasing the adhesive by a unusual startup and hope to pursue FDA approval to confirm the patch in clinical settings.

“We are discovering out a basic mechanics enviornment, adhesion, in an especially animated ambiance, interior the physique. There are thousands and thousands of surgical procedures worldwide a Twelve months to restore gastrointestinal defects, and the leakage fee is as a lot as 20 p.c in high-risk patients,” Zhao says. “This tape may maybe resolve that enviornment, and doubtlessly set thousands of lives.”

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