3D-printed cardiovascular polymer scaffold reinforced by functional nanofiber additives for tunable mechanical strength and controlled drug release

Abstract

Controlled drug eluting cardiovascular scaffolds (CDECS) have received significant interest in human healthcare compared to conventional drug eluting cardiovascular scaffolds (DECS) owing to their improved efficiency, patient compliance, and reduced toxicity. However, experimental demonstration of CDECS using synthetic polymers have had minimal success to yet. Herein, we proposed the use of gold particles incorporated carbon nanofibers (Au-S-CNF; hereafter referred to as functional additives) that are capable of reinforcing polycaprolactone (PCL) cardiovascular scaffolds and facilitating controlled drug delivery. The incorporation of 0.5 wt% of the designed functional additives uniformly dispersed in PCL matrix and cause superior mechanical properties (elastic modulus, 169 MPa and toughness, 334 J cm−3) to that of bare PCL scaffolds. The functional additives reinforced PCL composites are used to fabricate patient specific CDECS using a 3-dimensonal (3D) printing technique. The practical feasibility of the proposed CDECS is established by demonstrating the scaffold's visibility in a mouse thoracic cavity using real-time X-ray imaging. Finally, the functional additives reinforced PCL cardiovascular scaffold used as a DECS and on-demand CDECS triggered by a near infrared (NIR) light source. This proposed medical device has the great potential to be employed for targeted therapies such as atherosclerosis, cancer, and tissue engineering.