UAlberta medical team engineers cartilage for nose reconstructions

Surgery professor Adetola Adesida and his team engineered cartilage that can be used for nasal reconstruction.

Ross Neitz, Edited and paraphrased for length by Sasha Roeder Mah. - 20 September 2018

Associate professors of surgery Khalid Ansari, Martin Osswald and Adetola Adesida used a clinically approved collagen biomaterial as a scaffold to grow new cartilage for patients who need nasal reconstruction after skin cancer.

The researchers hope to begin clinical trials in the near future to prove the efficacy of the cartilage in the operating room. Engineered cartilage-superior in many ways to that harvested at sites such as a patient's ribs or ear-could potentially supply unlimited quantities for surgeons and result in custom-made reconstructions for patients. In 2015, there were more than three million cases of skin cancer in North America alone and about one-third of cases occur on a patient's nose.

This research was funded by Alberta Cancer Foundation, Mickleborough Interfacial Bioscience Research Program and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.