【原】豪猪刺变手术缝合针

Amber看世界 2021-05-21

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At first, the idea of using porcupine quills to patch up wounds sounds torturous.

一开始，用豪猪刺来缝合伤口的想法听起来有点荒谬。

But, taking inspiration from the spiky rodent, researchers have begun to work on a new type of surgical staple that may be less damaging — and less painful — than current staples.

但，利用从这种长刺的啮齿动物身上得到的灵感，研究员们已经开始研发一种比目前在用的缝合针伤害更小—疼痛也更少—的新型手术缝合针。

Worldwide, surgeons perform more than 4 million operations annually, usually using sutures and staples to close wounds.

每年，全世界的外科医生要进行超过四百万次手术，通常利用缝合针和缝合线来进行伤口的缝合。

Yet these traditional tools designed to aid healing can create their own problems.

然而，这些传统的设计用来帮助恢复的工具也会带来它们自身的伤害。

"We've been using sutures and staples for decades, and they've been incredibly useful," says Jeff Karp, a bioengineer at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

“我们用缝合针和缝合线已经有几十年了，它们也确实很管用，”杰夫.卡普说道，他是波士顿的布里汉姆女子医院的一名生物工程师，也是哈佛医学院的药学教授。

"But there are challenges in terms of placing them for minimally invasive procedures."

“但如果要用伤害更小的方式来替代它们挑战还是不小的。

Surgical staples are faster to insert than sutures, which require a needle and thread, he explains.

手术缝合针比缝合线穿刺的速度更快，这就需要针和线一起，他解释道。

But current staples, made of metal, tear tissue on the way in and cause more damage when bent to stay in place.

但目前的缝合针，是由金属制成，会在刺入皮肤的过程中损伤组织，后来弯曲定位的时候会带来更多的损伤。

Karp and his team have been searching for new ways to hold tissue together.

卡普和他的团队一直在寻找新的方式来固定伤口组织。

One brainstorming session led to a discussion of a porcupine and its quill.

在一次头脑风暴中诞生了关于豪猪和它的刺的讨论。

The North American porcupine appears cute, but it has more than 30,000 menacing quills covering much of its body, each one hollow and 2 to 3 inches long.

北美豪猪看起来很萌，诞生它拥有超过三万根覆盖全身的防卫刺，每一根都是中空的，长2到3英寸。

The slow-moving herbivore uses the quills as a last-resort defense against predators.

这种行动迟缓的食草动物利用这些刺来作为抵御捕食者的杀手锏。

The quills are actually specialized hairs that mostly lie flat against the animal's body.

这些刺其实是特化了的毛发，大部分沿着这种动物的体表平滑排列。

Only when threatened will the porcupine erect them.

只有当面临威胁时，豪猪才会把刺竖起来。

And, contrary to a common myth, porcupines don't shoot the quills out from their bodies.

还有，人们有个常见的误区，豪猪其实并不会从把刺从身体上发射出去。

"The wonderful thing about porcupines is that they seem to feel secure," said Uldis Roze, emeritus biology professor at Queens College, City University of New York.

“关于豪猪的一大好处就是它们似乎总是很安详，”乌迪斯,罗斯说道，他是纽约城市大学皇后校区的名誉生物学教授。

"They feel like they're not in danger, and they're sweet."

“它们会感觉并没有什么危险，它们还是很可爱的。”

When the porcupine is relaxed, its other hairs and fur hide most of the quills.

当这种豪猪放松的时候，它的其他毛发会覆盖大部分尖刺。

When threatened, the adult porcupine displays three types of warnings before lashing out, according to Roze's book The North American Porcupine.

根据罗斯的书《北美豪猪》中所写，当收到威胁时，成年豪猪会有三种警告方式，最后进攻。

First, the contrasting black and white pattern of the animal's quills and other hairs — known as aposematic coloration — is a visual warning signal.

首先，豪猪黑白相间对比分明的条纹和毛发—被称为警戒色—就是一种警告信号。

A unique pungent odor and ominous teeth are further clues that dogs, mountain lions and other potential predators should stay away.

独特的辛辣气味和尖利的牙齿也在告诉狗，美洲豹和其他捕食者要离远点儿。

If that doesn't work, a porcupine will use its powerful, spiky tail to slap at the aggressor.

假如还不奏效，豪猪就会用它有力的长满刺的尾巴来挥向进攻者。

Each quill is held in place by its own special structure in the porcupine's skin.

每一根刺都有特殊的结构收在豪猪的皮肤里。

Direct physical contact with a predator causes the porcupine's skin to release the quill.

与捕食者身体接触时，这些刺会被豪猪的皮肤释放出去。

Quills from North American porcupines pack a hidden punch: microscopic, backward-facing barbs.

北美豪猪的刺还有一种隐藏的特点：显微镜下朝后的

倒钩。

Covering just the needlelike tip of the quills, the barbs make removing a quill difficult, because they flare out when pulled in a direction opposite to the way they went in.

这些倒钩覆盖着刺的尖端，使得拔出变得困难，因为往射入的反方向拉的时候倒钩就会展开。

That means that if a predator gets quilled, the quill might never come out.

这就意味着当捕食者被扎了之后，刺恐怕再也拔不出来了。

When scientists examine the skulls of deceased mountain lions, Roze says, they often find the tips of porcupine quills embedded in the lions' jaw bones.

当科学家们检查死去的美洲豹时，罗斯说道，他们经常会在美洲豹的下巴骨头上找到埋入其中的豪猪的刺。

"The mountain lion just accepts it," said Roze.

“美洲豹们也只能接受了，”罗斯说道。

"It's part of the work of killing a porcupine."

“这就是吃掉豪猪的代价。”

Of course, that mountain lion's days of porcupine feasting may end forever if the quills keep it from eating or end up in the cat's vulnerable internal organs

当然了，假如这种刺阻碍了它们继续吃东西或者进入了这种大型猫科动物脆弱的内脏，它们吃豪猪的好日子也就到头了。

Still, a quill passing through the body is far from painless — it's excruciating — as Roze knows from personal experience.

不过，豪猪刺扎到身上并非不疼—而是很痛的—正如罗斯亲身经历过的那样。

He was once quilled in his bicep while up in a tree, trying to catch a porcupine.

当他爬树去抓一只豪猪的时候，大臂曾经被扎过。

Despite his wife's suggestion afterward that he immediately seek medical care, he waited two harrowing days.

不管他太太劝他立刻就医的建议，他等待了痛苦的两天。

By that time, the quill had traveled in one direction and cleanly exited his lower arm.

两天后，那根刺已经沿着一个方向移动，进入了他的小臂。

He kept the quill as a souvenir.

他把这根刺当做了纪念品。

The quill's barbs eased its penetration into his flesh.

这根刺的倒钩轻易穿入了他的肌肉。

They also helped drive the quill in deeper, until it exited (though it would have been stopped by a harder material, such as bone).

倒钩还会帮助让刺扎得更深，直到刺脱离豪猪身体（不过遇到更硬的材料比如骨头时，就进不去了。）

It was the barbs that most interested Karp.

这些倒钩让卡普尤为感兴趣。

He and his team ran experiments comparing a barbed quill to a barbless quill, measuring the forces required to insert and remove barbed spears.

他和他的团队进行了实验来对比有倒钩和无倒钩的刺，测量了它们分别进入和拔除所需要的力。

In contrast to a barbless quill or a surgical staple — which tear the tissue and create gaps that are susceptible to infection — the barbed quill's design means it does minimal damage on the way in, the researchers found.

研究员们发现，跟无倒钩的刺或者手术缝合针—它们会撕开组织，带来容易感染的缝隙—相比，有倒钩的刺的设计意味着它在刺入时带来的损伤是最小的。

A new type of medical staple that had two barbed tips would require much less effort to place, Karp figures, and the gripping power of the barbs would hold it in position without needing to bend the staple.

一种新型的带两个倒钩的医用缝合针穿入的时候更省力，卡普发现，而倒钩的抓合力会让它定位而不需要弯曲缝合针。

Karp says he anticipates making the new staples out of biodegradable material so they will fully dissolve over time without having to be removed.

卡普说他期望用生物可降解材料制造新型的缝合针，这样它们就可以完全降解而不用拔除。

The challenge now is to re-create the full barb's shape.

现在面临的挑战就是再现出完整倒钩的形状。

"Nature has designs that humans can't achieve yet, at least at large scale," Karp says. "Large-scale manufacturing is a human problem."

“大自然设计出了人力不及的东西，至少在大规模上是这样，”卡普说道。“大规模生产是人们的难题。”

But if the right technologies become available, he estimates that human testing of porcupine quill-inspired tools could begin in two to five years.

但如果找到了合适的技术，他预计豪猪刺式的分割和功能句将在两到五年内实现人体测试。

"This could be an enabler for smaller incisions to be made in a large number of surgeries," Karp says.

“这可能会使得大量外科手术只需要很小的切口，”卡普说道。

That would be good news for both surgeons and patients.