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Fabricating biomedical origami: a state-of-the-art review

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International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

Origami-based biomedical device design is an emerging technology due to its ability to be deployed from a minimal foldable pattern to a larger volume. This paper aims to review state-of-the-art origami structures applied in the medical device field.

Methods

Publications and reports of origami structure related to medical device design from the past 10 years are reviewed and categorized according to engineering specifications, including the application field, fabrication material, size/volume, deployment method, manufacturability, and advantages.

Results

This paper presents an overview of the biomedical applications of devices based on origami structures, including disposable sterilization covers, cardiac catheterization, stent grafts, encapsulation and microsurgery, gastrointestinal microsurgery, laparoscopic surgical grippers, microgrippers, microfluidic devices, and drug delivery. Challenges in terms of materials and fabrication, assembly, modeling and computation design, and clinical adoptability are discussed at the end of this paper to provide guidance for future origami-based design in the medical device field.

Conclusion

Concepts from origami can be used to design and develop novel medical devices. Origami-based medical device design is currently progressing, with researchers improving design methods, materials, fabrication techniques, and folding efficiency.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported in part by the NIH Bench-to-Bedside Award, NIH Center for Interventional Oncology Grant, NSF I-Corps Team Grant (1617340), UGA-AU Inter-Institutional Seed Funding, UGA Clinical and Translational Research Unit Seed Grant, American Society for Quality Dr. Richard J. Schlesinger Grant, PHS Grant UL1TR000454 from the Clinical and Translational Science Award Program, NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Engineering, The University of Georgia, Athens, GA, 30605, USA

    Meredith Johnson, Yue Chen, Sierra Hovet & Zion Tsz Ho Tse

  2. National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA

    Sheng Xu & Bradford Wood

  3. Department of Biomedical Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Hongliang Ren

  4. Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Junichi Tokuda

Authors
  1. Meredith Johnson
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  2. Yue Chen
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  3. Sierra Hovet
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  4. Sheng Xu
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  5. Bradford Wood
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  6. Hongliang Ren
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  7. Junichi Tokuda
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  8. Zion Tsz Ho Tse
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zion Tsz Ho Tse.

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Funding

This study was supported in part by the NIH Bench-to-Bedside Award, NIH Center for Interventional Oncology Grant, NSF I-Corps Team Grant (1617340), UGA-AU Inter-Institutional Seed Funding, UGA Clinical and Translational Research Unit Seed Grant, American Society for Quality Dr. Richard J. Schlesinger Grant, PHS Grant UL1TR000454 from the Clinical and Translational Science Award Program, NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, Singapore Academic Research Fund under Grant R-397-000-227-112, NUSRI China Jiangsu Provincial Grant BK20150386 & BE2016077.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Human and animals rights

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

Additional information

Meredith Johnson and Yue Chen are co-first authors.

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Johnson, M., Chen, Y., Hovet, S. et al. Fabricating biomedical origami: a state-of-the-art review. Int J CARS 12, 2023–2032 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11548-017-1545-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11548-017-1545-1

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