The peritoneum is the largest serous membrane of the human body, located in the abdominal and pelvic cavity. It ensures the physiology of peristaltic movements and fertility. Additionally, it has an important immunological function. Peritoneal adhesions are estimated to be found after 63%-97% of all abdominal surgeries and may lead to severe and difficult to localize chronic pain syndromes, secondary infertility, and mechanic ileus diseases. Moreover, the peritoneum plays an important role in the development of primary tumors and especially in the context of metastasis of various carcinomas.
Conventional in-vitro-systems and 3D-Organoid models cannot replicate the complex tissue structure as well as the interactions with the immune system. To present, animal models are used to develop therapeutics and identify toxicities. However, biocompatibility, molecular effectiveness and immune reactions can hardly be transferred to the human body. Particularly due to the significantly differences between human and animal immune systems, the patient-specific, vascularised and immune integrated Peritoneum-on-Chip model is able to generate transferable results. According to the specifications of the 3R principle (Replace, Reduce, Refine), this enables the reduction of animal experiments, the improved transferability of preclinical results to the clinical phases and thus makes the overall development more cost-effective, safer and faster.
