The Comparison between Additively Manufactured and Molded 3D Scaffolds for Tissue Engineering Applications

Abstract

Blood vessels are essential as they transport oxygen and nutrients. To address the increasing mortality rate from cardiovascular diseases, modern science is focusing on clinical trials for replacing human blood vessels with artificial ones. However, the challenge lies in replicating the intricate anatomy with exact dimensional accuracy on a small scale. This work concentrates on developing innovative fabrication solutions in tissue engineering 3D scaffolds. The study captured two prototypes; one based on traditional manufacturing and the other applied an additive manufacturing principle. Once single-layered construct were manufactured, the results were evaluated in terms of dimensional accuracy measuring the constructs’ length, diameter and thickness. Additional tests were performed for finding the strain at break by applying manual strain-induced method. The samples demonstrated that molding excelled in terms of precision however, the mechanical performance did not meet the ISO 7198 standard. Additive manufacturing approach on the other hand, fully satisfied the structural criteria yet the obtained thickness significantly varied from the given one. Furthermore, efforts were made for fabricating three-layered scaffolds and while AM approach brought preferable results, difficulties were faced with molding. Thus, the importance of this work lies in demonstrating the process capabilities of two methods. The results indicate that while AM is suitable for fabricating multilayered constructs with good structural integrity, molding appears promising for small diameter scaffolds, as it can reduce the anatomical mismatches. Therefore, future work will focus on improving the limitations of these methods for developing three-layered vascular grafts within the admissible dimensional and mechanical criteria.