Thrombogenicity studies of three different variants of processed bovine pericardium

Abstract

Versatile use of bovine pericardium in clinical cardiovascular surgery requires processing, especially cross-linking, to make the tissue non antigenic and mechanically strong. Forty-nine bovine pericardia were made acellular and then cross-linked by two different methods, group A (20) with formalin and group B (29) with heparin and subsequently, as a final measure, five of group B pericardia were gamma-ray sterilized with stipulated dose of 25 kGy and classified as group C. The surface property of thrombogenesis and haemolysis were compared in these three groups to identify a suitable method of processing so that it could be used in the vascular system without any thromboembolic complication. Extensive microscopical examination, mechanical testing and other physical property for biocompatibility studies were conducted on these three different groups with key focus on in vitro thrombogenicity studies. Heparin treated group B bovine pericardium appeared to be the best method of processing among these three by the above studies and was confirmed by laser confocal microscopy. Heparin cross-linked and heparin sodium treated processing had gained the higher tensile strength, and appeared to be nonthrombogenic, noncalcifiable (by animal experiments), biocompatible biomaterial, which can be used clinically.