Researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia developed a scaffold designed to improve healing after rotator cuff repair by mimicking the natural transition from tendon to cartilage-like tissue to bone.
The scaffold has different regions designed to recreate those tissue environments and integrate with existing suture anchor systems used in rotator cuff repair, according to an Aug. 25 news release. The system was detailed in Science Advances.
In laboratory testing, the scaffold’s different regions guided stem cells toward forming tendon- and cartilage-like tissues. In animal models, the scaffold promoted more organized formations of tendon, cartilage-like tissue and bone at the repair site compared with repairs without the scaffold.
Roughly 250,000 people each year in the United States require rotator cuff surgery, and about 40% of people aged 60 years or older experience rotator cuff injuries.
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