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New surgical 'smart patch' solution for shoulder injury

17 Feb '14

4 min read

An additional and important feature is that the scaffold degrades and is absorbed by the body after three to six months, leaving no foreign material in the long term.

With an expected price tag of less that £1,500, the new patch could offer effective treatment at a fraction of the cost of alternatives such as the use of stem cells or growth factors. Given the increasing number of operations being carried out, this will be a significant consideration.

Prof Carr said: "One of the great strengths here in Oxford is having clinicians, engineers, biochemists and other specialists, working together across the partnership between the University of Oxford and Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust. This multidisciplinary approach means that when unsolved clinical problems are identified we can investigate the cause, then develop a solution, before returning to clinic to test if it helps patients. It’s a bedside to bench and back again journey."

Professor Carr added: "If successful, the patch has the potential to be adapted for use in other tissue repair operations such as heart surgery, hernia repair, bladder repair and the treatment of early arthritis."

Oxford University Hospitals