Study Reveals Lab Created Blood Vessels Can Help Dialysis Patients

A latest study has found out that blood vessels developed in the lab can be turned into living tissues in those patients who are on dialysis due to advanced stage of kidney disease. The study has been based on a research on just 13 patients during an early trial. Researchers also said that developed engineered tissues would be able to provide new options for treatment for certain patients who have ruptured blood vessels because of traumatic wounds or severe heart diseases. The result of these studies was published on March 27. The study took patients suffering from kidney disease who had blood vessels developed in laboratories so that they can undertake dialysis.

Heather Prichard, a renowned researcher of the study said that the standard way to provide dialysis these days is by making a fistula. A fistula is a passage made by a surgery. Surgeons make a join in patient’s leg or arm of a vein and artery. Blood then goes through tubes inside the dialysis machine and the toxins are dismissed from there. Prichard stated that few of the patients do not have veins that are strong enough for that. For such rare cases, synthetic implants are used for making the join between artery and vein. However, it is impossible for the implants to behave like actual vessels. Therefore, patients get vulnerable to infections or blood clots in the body.

Thus, Prichard and his team took the initiative to help patients in this regard and they developed blood vessels in the laboratory. Prichard used the concept of self disperse. After implanting the vessel in the body, the cells inside the patient’s body would naturally start populating it. Soon, several samples would be made of the blood vessel that resembles the native blood vessel of the patient. Thus, the body would not reject them and undertaking dialysis would become easier.