Preservation of Amniotic Membrane

Abstract

Human amniotic membrane is an important biomaterial in medicine, it has virtually unlimited availability and low processing cost. Preservation of human amniotic membrane is essential to guarantee a continuous supply in the clinical setting. The establishment of standardized protocols for collecting and preserving human amniotic membrane worldwide is crucial to ensure best quality tissue, according to each application, and safety for the patients. Nowadays preservation of amnion relies on several methodologies, namely, hypothermic storage at 4 °C, usually referred simply as fresh storage, cryopreservation, freeze drying, air-drying and others. Every method used in the processing and preservation of human amniotic membrane affects the properties of the biological material. However the maintenance of some characteristics might be important for each application. Thus, storage conditions should be thought to support the integrity of structures that might influence clinical outcome, like the basement membrane or the extracellular matrix. Within human amniotic membrane preservation methods, each procedure presents advantages and disadvantages. The contraindicated, for safety issues, fresh human amniotic membrane is a ready to use biomaterial. Cryopreservation at −80 °C allows conservation for long periods of time in appropriate cryoprotectant media. Lyophilized human amniotic membrane can be stored at room temperature making its transport simpler. In this chapter, the main issues about human amniotic membrane collection and preservation are reviewed and discussed.