Grant: Project Grant

Non-melanoma skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in Canadians. While non-melanoma skin cancer is not life-threatening, about 40% of cases occur on the nose. When non-melanoma skin cancer occurs on the nose, the standard treatment option is total removal by surgery. However, the excision of the skin tumour on the nose leads to loss of the underlying cartilage. This can lead to disfigurement, emotional distress, social isolation, and difficulty or loss of breathing through the nose. To replace the sacrificed cartilage, head and neck surgeons harvest cartilage from the rib of patients and carve it into custom shapes before using it to replace the sacrificed cartilage. Harvesting rib cartilage has many risks including life-threatening collapsed lungs and infections. We have demonstrated how to make nose cartilage from cartilage cells taken from a small specimen of cartilage inside the nose known as the septum. We have combined the cartilage cells with naturally occurring collagen to build and produce new nose cartilage using 3D printing technology. The manufactured nose cartilage can be the desired shape without carving by head and neck surgeons. Furthermore, the manufactured cartilage can easily be sutured during surgery. In this study, we will study a protein that we have identified to mark high-quality cartilage-forming cells and use the acquired knowledge to inform our overarching goal to reproducibly manufacture high-quality cartilage for nose jobs in non-melanoma skin cancer patients.