Page 392 - IJB-10-1

International

Journal of Bioprinting

RESEARCH ARTICLE
In situ bioprinting for cartilage repair using a

parallel manipulator

Hao-Yang Lei 1,2† , You-Rong Chen 1,3,4† , Zi-Bin Liu , Yi-Nong Li , Bing-Bing Xu 1,3,4 *,
2
2
Chang-Hui Song *, and Jia-Kuo Yu 1,3,4 *
2
1 Department of Sports Medicine, Peking University Third Hospital, Institute of Sports Medicine of
Peking University, Beijing, China
2 School of Mechanical and Automotive Engineering, South China University of Technology,
Guangzhou, China
3
Beijing Key Laboratory of Sports Injuries, Beijing, China
4 Engineering Research Center of Sports Trauma Treatment Technology and Devices, Ministry of
Education, Beijing, China
(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Light-Based Bioprinted Scaffolds for Tissue Engineering)

Abstract

Regeneration of large-sized cartilage injury is a challenging endeavor. In vitro
bioprinting for cartilage repair has several drawbacks, such as the tedious process of
material preparation, potential contamination, and the mismatch between implant
and defect. This study aimed to investigate the application of in situ bioprinting in
cartilage repair using a parallel manipulator. In particular, the material extrusion rate
and printing speed were adjusted to obtain the suitable forming parameters in a
† These authors contributed equally custom-made parallel manipulator. Cell experiments were conducted to determine
to this work.
the biocompatibility. Finally, a rabbit cartilage defect model was used to evaluate the
*Corresponding authors: feasibility of in situ bioprinting combined with machine vision. The results showed
Bing-Bing Xu that to achieve optimum printing using the custom-made three-dimensional printer,
(xubingbing@hsc.pku.edu.cn)
Chang-Hui Song 400–560 mm/min should be set as the standard printing speed, with an extrusion
(chsong@scut.edu.cn) multiplier of 0.09–0.10. Cartilage defects can be precisely and easily segmented using
Jia-Kuo Yu (yujiakuo@126.com) a bimodal method with a 2% deviation error. In vitro experiments revealed that the
Citation: Lei HY, Chen YR, Liu ZB. utilized materials are highly biocompatible. Furthermore, according to the results
et al. In situ bioprinting for cartilage from in vivo experiments, in situ bioprinting lends itself useful in the repair of cartilage
repair using a parallel manipulator. defects. The overall results confirmed the feasibility of applying a parallel manipulator
Int J Bioprint. 2024;10(1):1437.
doi: 10.36922/ijb.1437 in in situ bioprinting for cartilage repair. Additional optimizations of the proposed
approach are warranted prior to translation into clinical applications in the future.
Received: August 2, 2023
Accepted: October 6, 2023
Published Online: January 8, 2024
Keywords: In situ bioprinting; Cartilage repair; Tissue engineering
Copyright: © 2024 Author(s).
This is an Open Access article
distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution
License, permitting distribution, 1. Introduction
and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is Articular cartilage defects are usually caused by external trauma, joint injury, or other
properly cited. diseases. However, the lack of vasculature, nerves, and lymph in the cartilage restricts its
1
2
Publisher’s Note: AccScience regeneration. A degraded cartilage without prompt and effective treatment can adversely
Publishing remains neutral with affect the subchondral bone, which, in the worst case, may lead to a situation necessitating
regard to jurisdictional claims in 3
published maps and institutional knee replacement. Thus, cartilage injury must be treated in the shortest possible time.
affiliations. Conventional treatment methods, such as osteochondral transplantation, bone marrow

Volume 10 Issue 1 (2024) 384 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijb.1437