Device for extending living tissues

DETAILED DESCRIPTION The problem posed is thus firstly, as in the above-mentioned earlier invention, to make it possible to increase a given area of living tissue by a determined amount by lengthening it, taking advantage of the ability of cells to reproduce, while limiting secondary stretching of regions that it is not desired to stretch, with this being done using a minimum number of operations over as short a possible a period time, and secondly to make it possible to move the edges of the surfaces of tissue concerned towards each other to any desired distance apart, or even to make them touch each other, one at least of said surfaces having been lengthened, this being done using the simplest possible implementation and with uniform effective lengthening of the entire area of the tissue concerned, and as in the preceding case, without unattractive deformation of the volume of the portion of the body that is covered by said tissue.
A solution to the problem posed is an improvement to known devices for extending living tissue, comprising at least one resilient means and at least two fastening means enabling said device to be fixed in said tissue along the edges of the area thereof that is to be treated, which edges are opposite each other in the direction in which they are to be moved towards each other at least by said resilient means; according to the invention, the device for expanding living tissue further comprises at least two independent resilient means, each fixed at at least one end to at least one of the fastening means, together with at least one support that is quasi-rigid and that is stationary compared with said tissue, to which support at least one of said resilient means is secured, which means deforms and moves relative to said support over which it urges said fastening means towards each other.
Said support of biocompatible material is preferably common to the resilient means and is constituted by a deformable plate of small thickness, which may itself be made up of two or more plates assembled together over adjustable lengths and deformed to match the surface of said tissue to be treated, and on which there are secured the other ends of said resilient means that are not themselves secured to the fastening means