Manufacturing of biodegradable scaffolds to engineer artificial blood vessel

Abstract

Blood vessels diseases such as cardiac infarction with coronary artery occlusion, peripheral arterial disorders, or stroke of carotid or cerebral arteries, are the leading causes of death in the world. One of medical procedures for clinical treatment of vascular diseases is the blood vessels grafting. As the autologous blood vessels, which are the “golden standard” for coronary grafting, are not always suitable for blood vessels grafting, there is a need to develop artificial blood vessels as a vascular prostheses, either from natural and synthetic materials, permanent synthetic or biodegradable scaffolds which would be suitable for vascular grafts. Considering this to be our study goal we made bilayered biodegradable polycaprolactone scaffolds with different properties and evaluated their morphological and biomechanical characteristics.