The current gold standard treatment for oral clefts is autologous bone grafting. This treatment, however, presents another wound site for the patient, greater discomfort, and pediatric patients have less bone mass for bone grafting. A potential alternative treatment is the use of tissue engineered scaffolds. Hydrogels are well characterized nanoporous scaffolds and cryogels are mechanically durable, macroporous, sponge-like scaffolds. However, there has been limited research on these scaffolds for cleft craniofacial defects. 3D-printed molds can be combined with cryogel/hydrogel fabrication to create patient-specific tissue engineered scaffolds. By combining 3D-printing technology and scaffold fabrication, we were able to create scaffolds with the geometry of three cleft craniofacial defects. The scaffolds were then characterized to assess the effect of the mold on their physical properties. While the scaffolds were able to completely fill the mold, creating the desired geometry, the overall volumes were smaller than expected. The cryogels possessed porosities ranging from 79.7% to 87.2% and high interconnectivity. Additionally, the cryogels swelled from 400% to almost 1500% of their original dry weight while the hydrogel swelling did not reach 500%, demonstrating the ability to fill a defect site. Overall, despite the complex geometry, the cryogel scaffolds displayed ideal properties for bone reconstruction.

Radiopaque and degradable hydrogel microspheres have a range of potential uses in medicine including proper placement of embolic material during occlusion procedures, acting as inherently embolic materials, and serving as drug carriers that can be located after injection. Current methods for creating radiopaque microspheres are either unable to fully and homogeneously incorporate radiopaque material throughout the microspheres for optimal imaging capabilities, do not result in degradable or fully compressible microspheres, or require elaborate, time‐consuming preparation. We used a simple one‐step microfluidic method to fabricate imageable, degradable polyethylene glycol (PEG) microspheres of varying sizes with homogenous dispersion of barium sulfate—a biocompatible, high‐radiopacity contrast agent. The imageability of the microspheres was characterized using optical microscopy and microcomputed tomography as a function of barium sulfate loading. Microspheres with 20% wt/vol barium sulfate had a mean CT attenuation value of 1,510 HU, similar to that of cortical bone, which should enable visualization with soft tissue. Compared with unloaded microspheres, barium sulfate‐loaded ones saw an increase in gelation and degradation times and storage modulus and decrease in swelling. Imageable microspheres retained compressibility and were injectable via catheter. The developed radiopaque, degradable PEG microspheres have various potential uses for interventional radiologists and imaging laboratories.