The advantages that technology offers to the body are increasing day by day. Breast implants, a collaboration between Healshape and Lattice Medical, is one of them.
Several initiatives around the world have developed a method that will be an alternative solution, especially for women who have lost their breasts due to cancer. The new method, which is aimed to replace silicone, does not require any serious surgery.
Today, an average of 2 million people are diagnosed with breast cancer each year. The most common treatment for this cancer is the removal of one breast. While women can have silicone replaced in their breasts when they wish, after this process, this method is not preferred willingly. So much so that according to the data, only 30% of women who have had their breasts removed, even in the United Kingdom, resort to having their breasts rebuilt with silicone.
While the main reason for this is the discomfort felt from silicone, a new method has started to emerge that will provide a solution for women who have to have their breasts removed and who want to have breasts again.
Startups like Lattice Medical and Healshape have begun publicly demonstrating their silicon removal methods. These private initiatives have developed 3D-printed implants that can create new breast tissue as an alternative to silicone. After a certain period, the implants in question disappear on their own without causing any harm to the body, and in this process, new breast tissue is formed in the individual.
First Attempt on July 11
Thanks to the implant, obstacles such as long-term surgery are also eliminated. The first manned study with the new method will be carried out by Lattice Medical on July 11. The implant will be placed on a volunteer individual. It is planned to start clinical studies of the implant in two years.
Although the two companies mentioned will use the implant method, how they provide it differs from each other. The Healshape initiative is adopting a soft implant that has been 3D printed using hydrogel. This implant is then covered with fat in the individual’s body. The implant disappears in the body of the individual at the end of 6 to 9 months. Lattice Medical, on the other hand, resorts to a cage-shaped implant printed using a biodegradable biopolymer.
A piece of tissue is placed in this cage and the tissue grows with adipose tissue within the cage. The implant disappears from the body at the end of 18 months.
