Liquid Tissue Graft

Background:

There is no agreed upon optimal treatment for urogenital stricture disease, which occurs when inflammation or scar tissue narrows the ureter/urethra. Noninvasive options include: 1. using dilators of increasing size or a balloon catheter to temporarily stretch the stricture (requires repeating and is likely very painful), and 2. cutting to widen the urethral lumen and using a stent or catheter temporarily to keep it open and allow healing. At best, however, these minimally invasive procedures are curative in only about 10% of the cases. 

There is a third treatment option, open reconstruction. In this procedure, the strictured segment is either completely resected or longitudinally incised; and the urethra or ureter is reconstructed by primary anastomosis or augmented/substituted using a free graft, skin flap, or intestinal segment. While open reconstruction is effective, it is unpopular because it is invasive and has a long recovery time. It also requires specialized surgical training and expertise and is technically more difficult than the non-invasive procedures.

Technology Overview:

SUNY Upstate Medical researchers have developed a novel, more effective minimally-invasive procedure to widen a luminal stricture. The improvement involves covering and protecting the wound with liquified epithelium (liquid micro-grafts) developed by harvesting, dissociating, and suspending buccal mucosa tissue in a carrier solution. The wound can be internal; some examples include wounds located within the urogenital tract duct or organ, the gastrointestinal tract duct or organ, or another lumen containing duct or organ of the subject. The wound can be external. This method can also be used to treat an area of the lumen where scar tissue is removed or incised. In each case, quality of recovery is improved and time of recovery is shortened. In addition, the cost of minimally invasive procedures is less than that of open reconstruction.

Advantages:

• Shorter time of recovery and improved quality of recovery
• Less invasive and less expensive than open urologic reconstruction.
• Cure rate similar to open reconstruction

Applications:

• External wounds
• Internal wounds
• Lumenal scar tissue repair

Intellectual Property Summary:

U.S. Patent Application filed January 6, 2016 [PCT/US2017/012569]

Licensing Status:

This technology is available for licensing.