Property determination of biomedical polymer scaffolds for cervical tissue repair

Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer disease among women and around 1/2 million women are diagnosed each year. Treatment options include surgery, such as hysterectomy, or radiotherapy. Both treatments make childbearing impossible. Other well-known medical issues related to the uterine cervix (UC) are insufficiency and abnormality of the cervix, which causes preterm childbirth. The UC is a cylindrical shaped narrow part of the uterus and connects the uterus to the vagina. It varies in size, thickness and shape depending on age, menstrual cycle and pregnancy. This study aims to design and investigate the mechanical properties of a nano-scaled polymer scaffold based on the porcine uterine cervix (PUC). The permeability and mechanical properties of electrospunned polyurethane scaffolds of two different polymer grades, Z1A1 and Z3A1, were investigated in order to explore the possibilities of applying these scaffolds in the future for tissue engineered UC. Methods of evaluation of this study were permeability testing, stress-relaxation test, dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) as well as scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The Z1A1 and Z3A1 samples were tested with and without impregnation of gelatine hydrogels in order to mimic tissue formation. The permeability of the Z3A1 scaffolds was found to be significantly higher than Z1A1 scaffolds when compared. The stress relaxation test showed that a higher stress was needed in order to elongate the Z3A1 samples in air, which indicates that these samples had a lower elasticity compared to Z1A1 samples tested in air. This difference in elasticity was also confirmed in the hysteresis test in air, which showed that the Z3A1 samples were stiffer when compared to the Z1A1 samples. The results for the gelatine impregnated samples in both the hysteresis test as well as the stress relaxation test showed that there was no consistency in the mechanical properties of the samples when they were compared to the samples without gelatine impregnation and between Z1A1 and Z3A1 impregnated samples. This inconstancy was especially shown when samples were compared at different strain levels.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

msc

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

masters-pg

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Strathclyde

Year dc:date.issued

2014

Author dc:creator

• Salah, Nadira Abdi

DOI

10.48730/re21-y063

Identifier

T13904

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:strathclyde:xw42n7888