Henriques Joana, Amaro Ana M, Piedade Ana P
University of Coimbra, CEMMPRE, ARISE, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 3030-788 Coimbra, Portugal.
Biomimetics (Basel). 2024 Feb 23;9(3):135. doi: 10.3390/biomimetics9030135.
Atherosclerosis represents the etiologic source of several cardiovascular events, including myocardial infarction, cerebrovascular accidents, and peripheral artery disease, which remain the leading cause of mortality in the world. Numerous strategies are being delineated to revert the non-optimal projections of the World Health Organization, by both designing new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches or improving the interventional procedures performed by physicians. Deeply understanding the pathological process of atherosclerosis is, therefore, mandatory to accomplish improved results in these trials. Due to their availability, reproducibility, low expensiveness, and rapid production, biomimicking physical models are preferred over animal experimentation because they can overcome some limitations, mainly related to replicability and ethical issues. Their capability to represent any atherosclerotic stage and/or plaque type makes them valuable tools to investigate hemodynamical, pharmacodynamical, and biomechanical behaviors, as well as to optimize imaging systems and, thus, obtain meaningful prospects to improve the efficacy and effectiveness of treatment on a patient-specific basis. However, the broadness of possible applications in which these biomodels can be used is associated with a wide range of tissue-mimicking materials that are selected depending on the final purpose of the model and, consequently, prioritizing some materials' properties over others. This review aims to summarize the progress in fabricating biomimicking atherosclerotic models, mainly focusing on using materials according to the intended application.
动脉粥样硬化是包括心肌梗死、脑血管意外和外周动脉疾病在内的多种心血管事件的病因，而这些心血管事件仍是全球主要的死亡原因。目前正在制定众多策略，通过设计新的诊断和治疗方法或改进医生所实施的介入程序，来扭转世界卫生组织的不理想预测结果。因此，深入了解动脉粥样硬化的病理过程对于在这些试验中取得更好的结果至关重要。由于其可用性、可重复性、低成本和快速生产，仿生物理模型比动物实验更受青睐，因为它们可以克服一些主要与可复制性和伦理问题相关的局限性。它们能够呈现任何动脉粥样硬化阶段和/或斑块类型，这使其成为研究血液动力学、药效动力学和生物力学行为以及优化成像系统的有价值工具，从而在针对特定患者的基础上获得改善治疗效果和有效性的有意义前景。然而，这些生物模型可用于的广泛应用与多种组织模拟材料相关，这些材料根据模型的最终用途进行选择，因此会优先考虑某些材料的特性而非其他特性。本综述旨在总结制造仿生动脉粥样硬化模型的进展，主要关注根据预期应用使用材料的情况。
