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Scientists at McGill University in Quebec say they have developed a flexible 3D printer designed to help rebuild injured vocal cords. Credit: Svitlana Lozova<\/a> \u2013 CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia commons.<\/p>\n Scientists at McGill University in Quebec say they have developed a minimally invasive, flexible 3D printer designed to help rebuild injured vocal cords, a technique the team says could reduce scarring after throat surgery and improve voice outcomes.<\/p>\n The device, described by the research team as a minimally invasive in-situ bioprinter (MIISB), uses a 2.7-millimeter flexible endoscopic printhead that fits through the working channel of standard suspension laryngoscopy, the common approach used in phonosurgery. <\/p>\n Surgeons would control nozzle position in real time to reconstruct the natural geometry of the vocal fold body by depositing a regenerative hydrogel into defects left after removal of polyps, lesions, or other pathologies.<\/p>\n Voice disorders affect an estimated 3% to 9% of the global population, and post-surgical fibrosis,\u00a0scarring that stiffens the vocal folds and degrades voice quality, occurs in roughly 5% to 18% of patients, the paper notes. Current preventative approaches rely on percutaneous hydrogel injections, which the authors say lack the spatial precision needed for some superficial lesions.<\/p>\n The team says their 3D Printer achieved minimal error margins for potential vocal cord repairs<\/p>\n The McGill team reports that their system achieved a mean nozzle-positioning error of 1.33 millimeters (0.052 inches), repeatability better than 0.2 mm (0.008 inches), and position drift under 0.8 mm (0.031 inches) within a 20 mm (0.787-inch) workspace. <\/p>\n The smallest consistent line width the printer produced was 1.2 mm (0.047 inches). The researchers demonstrated manual printing of 20-mm (0.787-inch) constructs on flat surfaces and reconstruction of simulated vocal-fold defects,\u00a0including a sulcus and cavity models, in an ex vivo surgical setup.<\/p>\n The research used a dopamine-grafted hyaluronic acid\u2013silk fibroin hydrogel <\/a>developed by the group for vocal-fold regeneration. That material, the team says, combines adhesive and mechanical properties tailored to the vocal fold\u2019s high-frequency vibrations and is designed to promote healthy tissue repair while degrading over time to reduce scarring.<\/p>\n The Minimally Invasive In-Situ Bioprinter (MIISB) developed by the McGill team combines a cable-driven soft robotic printhead housed in a 3.2 mm (0.126-inch) stainless-steel tube and an actuator unit mounted outside the surgeon\u2019s workspace. A data-driven kinematic model translates surgeon commands into coordinated cable actuations to bend and position the nozzle; hydrogel<\/a> extrusion is controlled by a pressurized syringe and solenoid valve. The device is intended to integrate with existing operating-room microscopes and laryngoscopy equipment.<\/p>\n McGill researchers say the development is not yet ready for human trials\u00a0<\/p>\n