World-first breast surgery just the beginning
Recent breast scaffold surgery at Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital (RBWH), proudly supported by RBWH Foundation, is just the beginning of world-first announcements tipped for Herston Biofabrication Institute (HBI), Australia’s first medical 3D printing institute.
The revolutionary procedure, based on decades of research and in funding partnership with the RBWH Foundation, saw the patient’s silicone implants removed and replaced with a 3D printed bioresorbable scaffold, which was then injected with her own fat cells.
HBI Director Dr Michael Wagels said while 3D scaffolds were already in use for wound management, bone healing, nerve grafts and small vessel grafts, HBI’s goal was to be ahead of the research wave.
“We want to be able to manufacture implants using a patient’s own tissue, instead of using a substitute,” said Dr Wagels (pictured right, with RBWH Foundation CEO Simone Garske and Comprehensive Breast Cancer Institute (CBCI) Director Professor Owen Ung).
The June 2022 breast scaffold surgery proved HBI is living up to its ambitious vision. While most biofabrication concepts take about 14 years to progress from drawing board to operating table, the breast scaffold took six.
The genius of HBI is bringing clinicians, academics and industry leaders together on a hospital campus
Biofabrication is not about the machines, it’s about the synergy of collaboration in proximity to patients.
- Dr Wagels.
In June, HBI, in collaboration with the Comprehensive Breast Cancer Institute (CBCI), announced 46-year-old Caboolture mother, Moana Staunton (pictured right), had become the first clinical trial patient to undergo breast reconstruction using scaffold technology.
The surgery paves the way for patients globally, who require breast reconstruction, to access a safer alternative to silicone leaving nothing but their own natural tissue within two years.
CBCI Director and former RBWH Foundation Board Member Professor Owen Ung said Moana was just one of many women who had experienced breast implant illness, noting a range of unexplained symptoms she believed were linked to her implants.
“In Moana’s case, she was experiencing dizziness and generally feeling unwell, and we’ll often see patients who believe their silicone implants may be making them ill,” Professor Ung said.
But it’s not just those experiencing complications from their implants that will benefit, as we roll out our clinical trial in patients just like Moana.
We will be moving into further studies for those who have experienced cancer, changing the lives of women who require a mastectomy and have limited reconstructive options until now.
“We are still in Phase One of clinical trials but this work has hugely promising implications for women all over the world.”
The Phase One clinical trial will recruit 15 – 20 eligible patients and will run until they each have received two years of follow up.
Dr Wagels, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon, has long seen the potential for personalised medicine and surgery. In 2017, Dr Wagels successfully transplanted a 3D-printed shinbone into the leg of a patient faced with amputation following a serious bone infection. Bone regenerated around the shinbone scaffold, enabling the patient to walk again.
“I had the idea that we could use the lining of the bone, rather than the bone itself, to wrap around the scaffold, so the bone could grow into the scaffold, which supports and directs the growth of new bone.”
Dr Wagels also applied the technique to a man who had lost one-third of his skull in a motorbike accident.
The RBWH Foundation CEO Simone Garske said the scaffold collaboration was an extraordinary example of the power of giving.
The Foundation is the philanthropic partner of both HBI and the CBCI.
The vision of our donors in advancing patient care and life-saving research has enabled the RBWH Foundation to invest $5 million in the establishment of HBI, Australia’s first research facility focusing on 3D printing, scanning and modelling of medical devices, bone, cartilage and tissue.
To witness such a powerful outcome of that work, to the benefit of women globally, is monumental as well as incredibly reassuring about the future of health care in Australia.
- Ms Garske.
If you would like to support groundbreaking research like this, please visit https://fundraise.rbwhfoundation.com.au/general-donation
Or email RBWH Foundation Philanthropy and Development Director, Nadeyn Barbieri, at n.barbieri@rbwhfoundation.com.au or 0410 011446.
