Development of a Composite Electrospun Polyethylene Terephthalate‐Polyglycolic Acid Material: Potential Use as a Drug‐Eluting Vascular Graft

Abstract

Intimal hyperplasia (IH), an excessive wound healing response of an injured vessel wall after bypass grafting, typically leads to prosthetic bypass graft failure. In an approach to ameliorate IH, nondegradable poly(ethylene terephthalate) or PET, which has been used in prosthetic vascular grafts for over 60 years, and biodegradable poly(glycolic acid) or PGA were electrospun using different techniques to generate a material that may serve as permanent scaffold and as a drug/biologic delivery device. PET and PGA polymers were electrospun from either a single‐blended solution (ePET/ePGA‐s) or two separate polymer solutions (ePET/ePGA‐d). ePET/ePGA‐d material revealed two distinct fibers and was significantly stronger than the single fiber ePET/ePGA‐s material. After 21 days of incubation in PBS, ePET‐PGA‐s showed fiber strand breaks likely due to the degradation of the PGA within the ePET‐ePGA‐s fiber, while the ePET/ePGA‐d material showed intact ePET fibers even after ePGA fiber degradation. The ePET/ePGA‐ material was able to release red fluorescent dye for at least 14 days. Attachment of human aortic smooth muscle cells (AoSMCs) was similar to both materials. ePET/ePGA‐d materials maybe a step towards bypass graft materials that can be custom‐designed to promote cellular attachment while serving as a drug delivery platform for IH prevention.