Natural Shaping of Acellular Dermal Matrices for Implant-Based Breast Reconstruction via Expansile Kirigami.

To complete a successful and aesthetic breast reconstruction for breast cancer survivors, tissue reinforcing acellular dermal matrices (ADMs) are widely utilized to create slings/pockets to keep breast implants or autologous tissue transfer secured against the chest wall in the desired location. However, ADM sheets are 2D and cannot completely cover the entire implant without wrinkles. Here, guided by finite element modeling, a kirigami strategy is presented to cut the ADM sheets with locally and precisely controlled stretchability, curvature, and elasticity.

Additive lattice kirigami.

Kirigami uses bending, folding, cutting, and pasting to create complex three-dimensional (3D) structures from a flat sheet. In the case of lattice kirigami, this cutting and rejoining introduces defects into an underlying 2D lattice in the form of points of nonzero Gaussian curvature. A set of simple rules was previously used to generate a wide variety of stepped structures; we now pare back these rules to their minimum.