Patient-specific carbon nanocomposite tracheal prosthesis

PurposeSurgical removal of the trachea is the current gold standard for treating severe airway carcinoma and stenosis. Resection of 6 cm or more of the trachea requires a replacement graft due to anastomotic tension. The high failure rates of current grafts are attributed to a mismatching of mechanical properties and slow epithelium formation on the inner lumen surface. There is also a current lack of tracheal prostheses that are closely tailored to the patient's anatomy.MethodsWe propose the development of a patient-specific, artificial trachea made of carbon nanotubes and poly-di-methyl-siloxane (CNT-PDMS) composite material. Computational simulations and finite element analysis were used to study the stress behavior of the designed implant in a patient-specific, tracheal model.ResultsFinite element studies indicated that the patient-specific carbon nanocomposite prosthesis produced stress distributions that are closer to that of the natural trachea. In vitro studies conducted on the proposed material h...