Fabrication and Characterization of Bioresorbable Drug-coated Porous Scaffolds for Vascular Tissue Engineering

Bioresorbable polymers have been studied for several decades as attractive candidates for promoting the advancement of medical science and bio-technology in modern society. In particular, with a well-defined architecture, bioresorbable polymers have prominent advantages over their bulk counterparts for applications in biomedical and implant devices, such as cell delivery, scaffolds for tissue engineering, and hydrogels as well as in the pharmaceutical fields. Biocompatible implant devices based on bioresorbable materials (for instance, bioresorbable polymers that combine the unique advantages of biocompability and easy handling) have emerged as a highly active field due to their promising applications in artificial implant systems and biomedical devices. In this paper, we report an approach to fabricate porous polycaprolactone (PCL) scaffolds using a 3D printing system. And its surface was treated to a hydrophilic surface using plasma treatment. Then, the aspirin and atorvastatin calcium salt mixture was dip coated onto the surface. The drug coating technology was used to deposit the drug material onto the scaffold surface. Our porous PCL scaffold was coated with aspirin and atorvastatin calcium salt to reduce the blood LDL cholesterol and restenosis. These results suggest that our approach may provide a promising scaffold for developing bioresorbable drug-delivery-biomaterials. We further demonstrate that our bioresorbable medical device can be used as vascular scaffolds to provide a wide range of applications for the design of medical devices.