Textured medical textiles

Inventors

Greenhalgh, E. Skott • Romano, John-Paul • SPEICHER, Travis • Farrell, Brendan

Assignees

TELA Bio Inc

Abstract

Described herein are implants (e.g., medical textiles/biotextiles) that include stitched gripping filaments to increase gripping, and methods of forming and using them. In some configurations these apparatuses may be configured as surgical grafts that may be used for soft tissue reconstruction, regeneration, or repair.

Core Innovation

The invention provides textured medical/surgical graft implants formed from one or more sheets of substrate material that include a plurality of gripping strands extending proud of a first side of the implant to increase gripping strength. The gripping strands are formed from filaments or strands that include one or more arms extending from a vertex, where each gripping strand is wrapped around a continuous strand of material extending adjacent to a second side of the sheets.

The described manufacturing approach forms the gripping strands by stitching a first pattern into one or more sheets of the substrate material over a mask positioned adjacent to a first side, while including a continuous first strand of material extending adjacent to the second side and a second strand of material extending adjacent to the mask. Cutting the second strand releases the mask from the sheets and forms the plurality of gripping strands extending proud of the first side, with each gripping strand comprising arms extending from a vertex wrapped around the continuous first strand.

In additional embodiments, the invention includes stitching patterns such as a first grid pattern and a back-and-forth pattern into one or more sheets of extracellular material over a mask. The disclosed variants include forming anchors at ends of the arms opposite the vertex, including anchor formation during the cutting step or via heating, and disclosed anchor tip shapes such as mushroom or knob-type anchors.

Claims Coverage

The independent claims in the provided partial content cover two related methods. Across these claims, the core inventive features are the mask-adjacent stitching with continuous strand coupling through a vertex-wrapped gripping strand, and, in the second independent claim, the addition of a grid pattern, a back-and-forth pattern, and an anchor at the opposite arm end.

Taken together, the independent claims require forming gripping strands that protrude from a first side by stitching over a mask and then cutting to remove the mask, with each gripping strand including arms that are coupled to a continuous strand through a vertex-wrapped arrangement. The second independent claim further specifies an ECM implementation using a grid plus back-and-forth stitching over a mask and requires anchor formation at the opposite end of each arm.

Stated Advantages

Documented Applications