Abstract
The mass loss behavior of degradable tissue scaffolds is critical to their lifespan and other degradation-related properties including mechanical strength and mass transport characteristics. This paper presents a novel method based on synchrotron imaging to characterize the scaffold mass loss from erosion degradation in situ, or without the need of extracting scaffolds once implanted. Specifically, the surface-eroding degradation of scaffolds in a degrading medium was monitored in situ by synchrotron-based imaging; and the time-dependent geometry of scaffolds captured by images was then employed to estimate their mass loss with time, based on the mathematical model that was adopted from the literature of surface erosion with the experimentally-identified model parameters. Acceptable agreement between experimental results and model predictions was observed for scaffolds in a cylindrical shape, made from poly(lactic-co-glycolic) acid (PLGA) and polycaprolactone (PCL). This study illustrates that geometry evaluation by synchrotron-based imaging is an effective means to in situ characterize the scaffold mass loss as well as possibly other degradation-related properties.
Highlights
Tissue engineering is an emerging field with one goal of developing methods to replace/repair damaged and/or diseased tissue
We proposed to employ computed tomography to reconstruct the scaffold geometry with time, which allows for the characterization of the volume of remaining scaffold material at multiple time points during its degradation
Since density is related to the crystallinity of the sample, a change in this quality may yield a change in geometry that is not related to mass loss, which would lead to an overestimation of mass loss from the characterization of the scaffold geometry
Summary
Tissue engineering is an emerging field with one goal of developing methods to replace/repair damaged and/or diseased tissue. One of the most promising state-of-the-art methods for creating new tissue is scaffold-based tissue engineering. In this method, an artificial matrix—known as a tissue scaffold—is seeded with patient derived cells, forming what is known as a tissue engineering construct. An artificial matrix—known as a tissue scaffold—is seeded with patient derived cells, forming what is known as a tissue engineering construct This construct is either directly implanted within the body, or incubated within an artificial simulacrum of the living environment for a time period prior to its implantation. Synthetic and natural polymers display two general types of degradation behavior, i.e., (1) surface degradation, as illustrated in Figure 1a; and (2) bulk degradation. Examples in the literature of scaffolds that display surface degradation are found in references [4,5,6], while examples of bulk degrading scaffolds are in [7,8,9] and inhomogeneous bulk degradation is in [10]
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