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TissueDB/Tissues/Cartilage

From Appropedia


Cartilage is a firm but flexible connective tissue that shapes and supports parts of the body where bone would be too rigid. Anatomists distinguish three types: hyaline cartilage, elastic cartilage and fibrocartilage. Hyaline cartilage forms the thyroid, cricoid and tracheal framework of the airway, the costal cartilages of the anterior chest wall, and the articular cartilage covering the bone surfaces inside synovial joints.

The builds documented on this page are airway and chest-wall cartilage rather than joint cartilage: the thyroid and cricoid cartilages of the larynx, the tracheal rings, and the costochondral junctions of the chest wall.

Materials

Material Visual Tactile Simulator Notes
Polyurethane Foam White UW Cricothyrotomy Simulator, D'Auria Cricothyrotomy Simulator Compliant foam standing in for the softer, springier tracheal cartilage rings.
TPE 90A Chest Tube Simulator (Brannan) Soft thermoplastic elastomer; flexible costochondral cartilage joints that flex without cracking.[1]
3D-printed trachea (print material not specified) Cricothyrotomy Simulator (Calvo) 3D-printed laryngotracheal model; palpable thyroid- and cricoid-cartilage landmarks, felt through the pork-belly skin overlay. Calvo prints the REAL CRIC trachea STL (airwaycollaboration.org); the print material is not stated in the source.
Medical-grade silicone (hardness not stated in source) Cricothyroidotomy Simulator (Gauger) Thyroid and cricoid cartilages as integrated regions of the 3D-printed medical-grade silicone laryngotracheal model — the superior and inferior palpable landmarks of the cricothyroid membrane. Both are standard front-of-neck-access landmarks and are not separately named by Gauger 2018.
Medical-grade silicone, Shore 45 Pediatric Front-of-Neck Access Simulator (Kovatch) Thyroid and cricoid cartilages moulded into a single silicone tracheal model, cast from a 3D-printed mould of CT-derived anatomy of a 5-year-old child and embedded in a paediatric mannequin; both are palpable through the synthetic skin overlay. Content validity was assessed by expert airway faculty (n = 6); transfer to patients was not tested.[2]
CardboardCricothyrotomy Simulator (Aho)A separate piece of cardboard cut to the shape of the thyroid cartilage and taped to the Styrofoam tubing in the superior position — the upper palpable laryngeal landmark bordering the cricothyroid membrane.
Zip tieCricothyrotomy Simulator (Aho)Placed circumferentially around the Styrofoam tubing just below the cardboard thyroid cartilage — the lower (inferior) palpable laryngeal landmark, the cricoid ring.
3D-printed trachea model (open-access UW Airway Collaboration STL) — filament, e.g. PLA, or resin Cricothyrotomy Simulator (Kei) Thyroid- and cricoid-cartilage landmarks integrated in the 3D-printed trachea model and palpated through the pork-belly skin overlay. Both cartilages are implied by the printed model and are not separately named by Kei 2019. Resin lasts more than 100 sessions; filament is cheaper but more brittle. The STL is the open-access UW Airway Collaboration model, shared with the White UW Cricothyrotomy Simulator.[3]
ABS Injection Laryngoplasty Simulator (Lee), White UW Cricothyrotomy Simulator, D'Auria Cricothyrotomy Simulator Rigid 3D-printing thermoplastic; prints the firm laryngeal cartilage framework (thyroid and cricoid landmarks). Lee prints this framework as a single piece on a Stratasys Fortus 250mc from the open-source University of Dundee / BodyParts3D laryngeal model; it carries the palpable landmarks for the thyrohyoid and cricothyroid injection approaches. ABS cannot be pierced, so a thermoplastic-polyurethane (TPU) framework is substituted where the transthyroid-cartilage approach must be simulated. The model was subsequently validated in a randomised controlled trial.[4][5]


  • Bone — subchondral bone supporting cartilage
  • Joint — synovial joint surfaced by articular cartilage



References

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  1. Brannan V, Dunne CL, Dubrowski A, Parsons MH (2021). "Development of a novel 3D-printed multifunctional thorax model simulator for the simulation-based training of tube thoracostomy." CJEM 23:547–550. DOI: 10.1007/s43678-021-00102-1. PMID: 33783760.
  2. Kovatch KJ, Powell AR, Green K, Reighard CL, Green GE, Gauger VT, Rooney DM, Zopf DA. "Development and Multidisciplinary Preliminary Validation of a 3-Dimensional-Printed Pediatric Airway Model for Emergency Airway Front-of-Neck Access Procedures." Anesthesia & Analgesia 2020;130(2):445–451. DOI: 10.1213/ANE.0000000000003774. PMID: 30234534.
  3. Kei J, Mebust DP, Duggan LV. The REAL CRIC Trainer: Instructions for Building an Inexpensive, Realistic Cricothyrotomy Simulator with Skin and Tissue, Bleeding, and Flash of Air. Journal of Emergency Medicine 2019;56(4):426–430. DOI: 10.1016/j.jemermed.2018.12.023. PMID: 30685221.
  4. Lee M, Ang C, Andreadis K, Shin J, Rameau A. An open-source three-dimensionally printed laryngeal model for injection laryngoplasty training. Laryngoscope 2021;131(3):E890–E895. DOI: 10.1002/lary.28952. PMID: 32750164.
  5. Kostas JC, Lee AS, Arunkumar A, Han C, Lee M, Goel AN, Alrassi J, Crosby T, Clark CM, Amin M, Abu-Ghanem S, Kirke D, Rameau A. Validation of a 3D-printed percutaneous injection laryngoplasty simulator: a randomized controlled trial. Laryngoscope 2024;134(1):318–323. DOI: 10.1002/lary.30878. PMID: 37466294.
At a Glance

Overview

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Synonyms

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Common names: Cartilage, Gristle, Joint cartilage

Anatomical terms: Hyaline cartilage, Articular cartilage, Chondral tissue, Elastic cartilage, Fibrocartilage, Cartilage matrix

Clinical terms: Chondral defect, Cartilage lesion, Articular surface

Regional terms: Cartilage (French), Cartilagine (Italian), Cartílago (Spanish), Knorpel (German), Kraakbeen (Dutch)



Page data
SDG
Authors Arturopelayo
License CC-BY-SA-4.0
Language English (en)
Related 0 subpages, 18 pages link here
Redirects TissueDB/Tissues/Fibrocartilage, TissueDB/Tissues/Cartilage Matrix, TissueDB/Tissues/Thyroid Cartilage, TissueDB/Tissues/Cricoid Cartilage, TissueDB/Tissues/Hypopharynx
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Created January 26, 2026 by Arturo Pelayo
Last edit July 27, 2026 by Arturo Pelayo
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