In Vitro Biocompatibility and Endothelialization of Novel Magnesium-Rare Earth Alloys for Improved Stent Applications

Magnesium (Mg) based alloys are the most advanced cardiovascular stent materials. This new generation of stent scaffold is currently under clinical evaluation with encouraging outcomes. All these Mg alloys contain a certain amount of rare earth (RE) elements though the exact composition is not yet disclosed. RE alloying can usually enhance the mechanical strength of different metal alloys but their toxicity might be an issue for medical applications. It is still unclear how RE elements will affect the magnesium (Mg) alloys intended for stent materials as a whole. In this study, we evaluated MgZnCaY-1RE, MgZnCaY-2RE, MgYZr-1RE, and MgZnYZr-1RE alloys for cardiovascular stents applications regarding their mechanical strength, corrosion resistance, hemolysis, platelet adhesion/activation, and endothelial biocompatibility. The mechanical properties of all alloys were significantly improved. Potentiodynamic polarization showed that the corrosion resistance of four alloys was at least 3–10 times higher than that of pure Mg control. Hemolysis test revealed that all the materials were non-hemolytic while little to moderate platelet adhesion was found on all materials surface. No significant cytotoxicity was observed in human aorta endothelial cells cultured with magnesium alloy extract solution for up to seven days. Direct endothelialization test showed that all the alloys possess significantly better capability to sustain endothelial cell attachment and growth. The results demonstrated the promising potential of these alloys for stent material applications in the future.