(440d) Fucoidan Loaded PCL-PEO Nanofibrous Scaffold for Small Diameter Vascular Graft - a Solution to Intimal Hyperplasia

Intimal hyperplasia is the thickening of the Tunica intima of a blood vessel as a complication of a reconstruction procedure, and it is the universal response of a vessel to injury and is an important reason of late bypass graft failure, particularly in vein and synthetic vascular grafts. Fucoidan, the drug under this investigation, has been proved to be a prospective drug to overcome intimal hyperplasia in vitro, and it remains yet to be monitored in vivo. With this as the basis, in this study, fucoidan loaded nanofibrous SDVG (small diameter vascular graft, < 5mm dimater) is fabricated from a blend of PEO and PCL polymer by using electrospinning method. Fucoidan is extracted from brown seaweed Sargassum weitti and then is blended with PEO/PCL polymer to form a homogeneous electrospinnable solution. It was optimized the electrospinning parameter for producing uniform fibers from PEO/PCL blend. The vascular conduit fabricated in this work is a bi-layered conduit, in which fucoidan loaded PEO/PCL intermediate layer is sandwiched between two layers of PEO/PCL nanofibers. The study establishes the PEO/PCL bilayered vascular graft as a reservoir of fucoidan and thereby gave an improved drug delivery in the later phase of graft implantation. The drug release profile showed a phase of drug release with an initial burst phase accounting for release of 30% of the loaded fucoidan. The dimensional uniformity of the vascular graft is confirmed by examining the cross section at different lengths along the graft. The study of interface under SEM showed a good overlap of the intermediate layer with the first and the second layer of PEO/PCL nanofiber. The Fucoidan loaded PEO/PCL graft fabricated can be a potential solution for long term patency of SDVG with a controlled and extended drug delivery.