Trial of degradable implant could give future hope for those with arthritis

A new degradable surgical implant could offer improved surgical success to people with arthritis, hernias and heart defects, says a research team from Oxford.

The protective patch, which wraps round soft tissue repairs, is made of a combination of resilient woven material (designed to encourage cells to grip and bond and withstand the stresses of movement after surgery) and a thread that is a hundred times finer than human hair.

Lab tests have been successful and the patch will now be trialled on people with shoulder injuries.

There are 10,000 shoulder repair operations carried out each year in England and Wales but 25% are not successful as the tendon tears again.

“We’ve used modern technology to produce very fine fibres which have the extraordinary ability to direct the way cells behave, and “wake up” tired and ageing cells, and make them want to heal, whereas previously they weren’t being made to want to heal,” explains Prof Andrew Carr.

The material in the patch disappears after a few months.

“Once the repair process has taken place we would rather not have a piece of foreign material sitting in someone’s body for the rest of their lives, because experience has shown us that ultimately the body will respond and reject that tissue,” Prof Carr says.

“We might be able to use it for other applications such as early arthritis management where we want to regenerate cartilage, repair of hernias, repair of bladder walls, and repair of heart defects.”