Can technology help reconstruct breast tissue?

London, Sep 9 (IANS) A technology that helps design buildings, bridges and aircraft is being enlisted to reconstruct breast tissue in cancer patients.

Researchers used computer-aided design (CAD) to create a precise mould of a breast to help aid surgeons in tissue reconstruction operations.

CAD was used to design and produce patient-specific physical scaffolds that could be used with tissue engineering -- one of the most promising areas of medicine, the journal Biofabrication reports.

Theoretically, patients' own cells could be harnessed and grown onto the highly specific scaffold and then transferred to the affected area, according to a statement of the Institute of Physics, Britain.

It would do away with the need to transfer tissue from other parts of the body which can cause large scars, huge blood loss and require five to 10 hours of anaesthesia.

Study co-author Dietmar Hutmacher from the Queensland University of Technology, Australia, said: 'We would take a laser scan of the healthy breast and use the CAD modelling process to design a patient-specific scaffold.'

The Institute of Physics (IOP) under whose sponsorship the project was undertaken, is a scientific charity devoted to increasing the practice, understanding and application of physics.