Abstract
Biodegradable scaffolds are of great value in tissue engineering. We have developed a method to fabricate patient-specific vascular scaffolds from a biocompatible and biodegradable polymer, poly(L-lactide-co-E-caprolactone). This method is very useful owing to its flexibility in materials and vascular configurations. In this paper, we propose a way to fabricate scaffolds of human carotid artery by combining processes of rapid prototyping, lost wax, dip coating, selective dissolution and salt leaching. As a result, the development of porous biodegradable scaffolds was successful, and their mechanical strength covered the range of human's blood vessels (1-3 MPa) enough. Human umbilical vein endothelial cells were also cultured on the scaffolds and their biocompatibility was confirmed by the growth of cells. The Young's modulus of scaffolds was controllable by changing polymer concentration and porosity. The wall thickness of tubular scaffold was also controllable by changing polymer concentration and pulling-up velocity at dip coating. We believe that this fabrication technique will be applicable in patient-specific regenerative medicine of blood vessel.
