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67th Annual Meeting Abstracts
The Risk of Stone Formation in Tissue Engineered Bladder
Christopher Cost1, *Parthasarathy Madurantakam2, Harry Koo1, *Gary Bowlin2
1VCU Hospital, Division of Urology, Richmond, VA;2Virginia Commonwealth University, Dept. of Biomedical Engineering, Richmond, VA
Introduction:
Bladder replacement therapies have known complications of malignant transformation, electrolyte disturbance, and stone formation. With the advancement of biotechnology, there is increasing opportunity to develop the ideal tissue engineered bladder. By using the electrospinning technique, we have previously demonstrated the ability of such nanofiber matrices to facilitate bladder smooth muscle growth. Our goal in this study was to evaluate the degree of mineralization and possible risk of subsequent stone formation in tissue engineering scaffolds for use in urologic applications.
Materials & Methods:
Synthetic polymers of varying concentrations were electrospun and incubated in a bioreactor for seven days with a simulated body fluid (SBF) solution and a 4x SBF solution to simulate the electrolyte concentrations found in urine. Scaffolds were evaluated with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to determine the qualitative degree of calcification.
Results:
SEM analysis revealed subjective mineralization of both the 1x and 4x SBF after one week of scaffold incubation, with a larger degree observed at higher concentrations.
Conclusions:
We have successfully demonstrated electrospun tissue engineering scaffolds’ tendencies to promote mineralization. Chronic exposure to elevated levels of urinary electrolytes could render implanted scaffolds more susceptible to becoming a nidus for stone formation, infection, and possible graft failure. Future experiments will involve SBF incubation of scaffolds with existing bladder smooth muscle cells to determine if cell growth is inhibited in such an environment.
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