Development of Novel, Bioresorbable, Small-Diameter Electrospun Vascular Grafts

Abstract

This study proposes a production method capable of producing vascular grafts from fully synthetic, resorbable polymers that both meet basic minimum mechanical requirements for potential vascular grafts, and have a compliance similar to that of the intended vasculature being replaced. All of the electrospun vascular grafts in this work meet the minimum mechanical requirements for compliance, burst pressure, and suture retention strength, and could be potential candidates for off-the-shelf tissue engineered vascular grafts. Each polymer investigated in this paper has FDA approval for medical use and has been shown to be successful in various tissue engineering applications. Only recently has an electrospun small-diameter graft been fabricated with compliance and burst pressure greater than that of the human saphenous vein. We show a significant advancement in burst pressure, compliance, and suture retention strength in the novel electrospun grafts presented in this work which demonstrates the potential use of these tissue engineered vascular grafts for coronary artery bypass graft and other smalldiameter graft indications.