An Interpretative Study of Patients’ Lived Experiences with Advanced Scaffold-Based Tissue Engineering and 3D Bioprinted Tissue Implantation Technologies

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Silvan Saputra
Asmail

Abstract

Regenerative medicine and tissue engineering have rapidly advanced as scientific fields focused on restoring damaged tissues through innovative technologies, specifically scaffold-based tissue engineering constructs and 3D bioprinted tissue implantation technologies. Within this domain, increasing attention has been directed toward understanding how patients encounter and live with these scaffold-based biomaterial implants and 3D bioprinted tissue constructs, particularly as they transition from experimental innovation to clinical application. However, limited knowledge exists regarding how patients subjectively experience, interpret, and integrate scaffold-based and 3D bioprinted tissue implantation procedures into their embodied, emotional, and temporal lives. Here, an interpretative phenomenological approach is used to explore and elucidate the essential meanings of patients’ lived experiences following the clinical implantation of scaffold-based engineered tissues and 3D bioprinted tissue constructs. Data were generated through in-depth, multi-phase interviews with patients who had undergone scaffold-supported tissue regeneration or 3D bioprinted tissue implantation and were analyzed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The findings reveal that patients experience scaffold-based and bioprinted regenerative interventions as a process of embodied negotiation marked by initial bodily alienation and gradual integration. Participants also described altered perceptions of time characterized by uncertainty and waiting, alongside emotional ambivalence shaped by hope, fear, and trust in advanced biofabrication technologies. These experiential dimensions were further embedded in reflective meaning-making processes that reshaped personal identity and understandings of the body in relation to engineered and bioprinted biological constructs. Together, these findings demonstrate that scaffold-based tissue engineering and 3D bioprinted tissue implantation technologies are lived not only as biomedical interventions but as complex human experiences, underscoring the importance of phenomenological approaches for advancing patient-centered knowledge and informing future research and practice in technology-driven regenerative healthcare.

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