Liquid Crystal Elastomer as a Dynamic Treatment of Incontinence in Women

项目摘要 出现了两种策略来替代或增强受损的自然肌肉的功能：1)使用组织 培养新的功能组织的工程或2)设计能够可逆改变的机械装置 形状。在这里，我们专注于理解和设计可用作机械装置的生物材料 从而取代受损组织的功能。这项提议的目标是综合和表征 能够对近红外光做出可逆形状改变的液晶弹性体(LCE) 通过皮肤传递。因此，该项目将使能够使用软件的新一类医疗设备 使软组织变形的致动器，如女性的尿道壁。虽然我们设想了大量的应用程序来 通过这些人工肌肉，我们试图评估LCEs在治疗压力性尿失禁方面的表现。 压力性尿失禁，即与大笑、咳嗽或打喷嚏等事件相关的尿失禁，会影响UP 到50%的女性，导致生活质量显著下降，美国每年的成本约为320亿美元 各州。在目前的手术治疗方案中，合成的尿路中间吊带是目前标准的 关心。目前，放置在尿路周围的吊带材料是永久性固定的，不适合 节制需要。这种静态行为是导致并发症的主要因素，这种并发症发生在高达10%的 案子。我们的中心假设是，LCEs的形状变化可以用于可逆性地使软组织变形 对经皮应用红外光的反应。为了评估这一假设，我们提出了两个具体目标： 1)制备和表征能够响应经皮红外光而改变形状的LCE 在模拟生理条件下控制驱动应力和应变，以及2)阐明组织的影响 LCE器件形状变化的模数和作为函数的应力泄漏点压力的测量 动物大小便失禁模型中的致动器形状。该团队包括生物材料(WARE)方面的专家， 经皮肤动力装置(Romero-Ortega)和失禁的外科治疗(Zimmern)。

Project Summary Two strategies have emerged to replace or augment the functions of damaged natural muscle: 1) use tissue engineering to grow new functional tissue or 2) engineer mechanical devices capable of reversibly changing shape. Here we focus on understanding and designing biomaterials that can function as mechanical devices and as such replace the function of damaged tissue. The goal of this proposal is to synthesize and characterize liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) that are capable of reversible shape change in response to near IR light delivered through the skin. This project will thus enable a new class of medical devices capable of using soft actuators to deform soft tissues, like the urethral wall in women. While we envision numerous applications for these artificial muscles, we seek to evaluate the performance of LCEs to manage stress urinary incontinence. Stress urinary incontinence, incontinence related to events such as laughing, coughing, or sneezing, affects up to 50% of women, leading to a significant reduction in quality of life and annual costs of ~$32bn in the United States. Among the current surgical treatment options, the synthetic mid-urethral sling is the current standard of care. At present, the sling materials placed around the urethra are permanently fixed and do not adapt to continence needs. This static behavior is a leading contributor to complications, which occur in up to 10% of cases. Our central hypothesis is that the shape change of LCEs can be used to reversibly deform soft tissues in response to transcutaneous application of IR light. To evaluate this hypothesis, we propose two specific aims: 1) Fabricate and characterize LCEs capable of changing shape in response to transcutaneous IR-light and control actuation stress and strain in simulated physiological conditions and 2) Elucidate the effects of tissue modulus on the shape change of LCE devices and measure changes in stress leak-point pressure as a function of actuator shape in an animal incontinence model. The team includes experts in biomaterials (Ware), transcutaneously-powered devices (Romero-Ortega), and surgical treatment of incontinence (Zimmern).