Tissue engineered vascular grafts transform into autologous neovessels capable of native function and growth.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Tissue-engineered vascular grafts (TEVGs) have the potential to advance the surgical management of infants and children requiring congenital heart surgery by creating functional vascular conduits with growth capacity.

Methods

Herein, we used an integrative computational-experimental approach to elucidate the natural history of neovessel formation in a large animal preclinical model; combining an in vitro accelerated degradation study with mechanical testing, large animal implantation studies with in vivo imaging and histology, and data-informed computational growth and remodeling models.

Results

Our findings demonstrate that the structural integrity of the polymeric scaffold is lost over the first 26 weeks in vivo, while polymeric fragments persist for up t

SUBMITTER: Blum KM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9053249 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature