# Patient, parent and professional expert perspectives on personalized regenerative implants: a qualitative focus group study

## TL;DR

This study explores how patients, parents, and experts view personalized regenerative implants, highlighting the need for patient-centered care and addressing mixed feelings about the technology.

## Contribution

The study provides new insights into stakeholder perspectives on personalized regenerative implants, emphasizing participatory approaches and ambivalence in their adoption.

## Key findings

- Patient-centered care and collaboration are essential for successful regenerative implant implementation.
- Participants showed ambivalent attitudes toward the novelty and personalization of regenerative implants.
- Personalization was seen as beneficial but also raised concerns about increased costs.

## Abstract

Background: Perspectives of patients, parents and professional experts on personalized regenerative implants for regenerative medicine purposes are largely unknown.

Method: To better understand these perspectives, we conducted four focus groups with professional experts of mixed European nationality (n = 8), Dutch patients with regular implants (n = 8), Dutch and Belgian (n = 5) and Spanish (n = 8) parents of children with cleft palate.

Results: Two overarching themes were identified: ‘patient-centered research and care’ and ‘ambivalent attitudes toward personalized regenerative implants’.

Discussion: The results reveal that stakeholders should adopt a participatory rather than an impairment discourse and address the ambivalence among professional experts, patients and parents.

Conclusion: Considering stakeholder perspectives facilitates ethical and responsible development and use of personalized regenerative implants.

It is largely unknown how patients, parents and professional experts think about personalized regenerative implants.

Learning more about their perspectives is relevant because it can assist in aligning the design and implementation of these implants with the needs and desires of stakeholders such as patients, engineers and clinicians.

The first overarching theme that emerged from the focus groups was the importance of patient-centered research and care. Three subthemes were identified: (a) support and expectation management, (b) institutional and interdisciplinary collaboration, (c) the implant’s contribution to living one’s life.

A second theme explored in the focus groups concerned participants expressing ambivalent attitudes toward the characteristics of personalized regenerative implants, such as their regenerative capacity, the novelty of this technology and the possibility for personalization.

The first overarching theme patient-centered research and care underscores the necessity for healthcare professionals to look beyond the mere technical and clinical aspects of personalized regenerative implant treatment.

In medicine in general and regenerative medicine in particular, we should facilitate a shift toward participatory discourse and change the way we talk and approach the individual, their body and illness.

Some of the ambivalent attitudes identified in this study were linked to characteristics of the implant itself, particularly personalization. Personalization was viewed as a potential contributor to improved care tailored to individual needs, alongside concerns about associated cost increases.

During the development and use of personalized regenerative implants, researchers should address ambivalence among professional experts, patients and parents, keeping in mind that ambivalence is not inherently negative.

The obtained results provide a valuable first step for emphasizing the need for patient-centered care and research within regenerative medicine and exploring ambivalent attitudes toward personalized regenerative implants.

Further evaluation of these insights and other ethically relevant aspects of personalized regenerative implants should take place in co-creation with diverse stakeholders in parallel to the technological development of these implants.