Abstract
Cardiovascular diseases are currently the most common cause of death globally and of which, the golden treatment method for severe cardiovascular diseases or coronary artery diseases are implantations of synthetic vascular grafts. However, such grafts often come with rejections and hypersensitivity reactions. With the emergence of regenerative medicine, researchers are now trying to explore alternative ways to produce grafts that are less likely to induce immunological reactions in patients. The main goal of such studies is to produce biocompatible artificial vascular grafts with the capability of allowing cellular adhesion and cellular proliferation for tissues regeneration. The Design of Experimental concepts is employed into the manufacturing process of digital light processing (DLP) 3D printing technology to explore near-optimal processing parameters to produce artificial vascular grafts with vascular characteristics that are close to native vessels by assessing for the cause and effect relationships between different ratios of amino resin (AR), 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA), dopamine, and curing durations. We found that with proper optimization of fabrication procedures and ratios of materials, we are able to successfully fabricate vascular grafts with good printing resolutions. These had similar physical properties to native vessels and were able to support cellular adhesion and proliferation. This study could support future studies in exploring near-optimal processes for fabrication of artificial vascular grafts that could be adapted into clinical applications.
Highlights
Cardiovascular disease is a common disease worldwide and many scientists have put in great efforts to explore the best treatment methodology for cardiovascular diseases
We developed biomedical materials that can be applied to digital light processing (DLP) 3D printing technology and further used this material in combination with bionic artificial vascular graft designs to achieve high accuracy, biocompatibility and physical properties that were similar with native vascular properties, including strength, elasticity, and porosity
The analysis of variance (ANOVA) method was Results were subjected to regression analysis
Summary
Cardiovascular disease is a common disease worldwide and many scientists have put in great efforts to explore the best treatment methodology for cardiovascular diseases. It is currently estimated that there are up to 15 million deaths worldwide from cardiovascular diseases annually [1,2,3]. The artificial vascular grafts that are available in the market are mainly made up of Dacron and polytetrafluoroethylene (ePTFE) and such grafts often have a diameter of more than 6 mm as the characteristics of Dacron make it unsuitable to fabricate grafts with smaller diameters [4,5]. Artificial grafts comprising of ePTFE have good biocompatibility and good physical properties that allowed surgeons to have more room for surgical procedures.
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