Fabrication of drug‐loaded electrospun aligned fibrous threads for suture applications

Abstract

In this work, drug-loaded fibers and threads were successfully fabricated by combining electrospinning with aligned fibers collection. Two different electrospinning processes, that is, blend and coaxial electrospinning, to incorporate a model drug tetracycline hydrochloride (TCH) into poly(L-lactic acid) (PLLA) fibers have been used and compared with each other. The resulting composite ultrafine fibers and threads were characterized through scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, differential scanning calorimetry, and tensile testing. It has been shown that average diameters of the fibers made from the same polymer concentration depended on the processing method. The blend TCH/ PLLA fibers showed the smallest fiber diameter, whereas neat PLLA fibers and core-shell TCH-PLLA fibers showed a larger proximal average diameter. Higher rotating speed of a wheel collector is helpful for obtaining better-aligned fibers. Both the polymer and the drug in the electrospun fibers have poor crystalline property. In vitro release study indicated that threads made from the core-shell fibers could suppress the initial burst release and provide a sustained drug release useful for the release of growth factor or other therapeutic drugs. On the other hand, the threads from the blend fibers produced a large initial burst release that may be used to prevent bacteria infection. A combination of these results suggests that electrospinning technique provides a novel way to fabricate medical agents-loaded fibrous threads for tissue suturing and tissue regeneration applications.2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res 89A: [80][81][82][83][84][85][86][87][88][89][90][91][92][93][94][95] 2009

Electrospun nanofibrous materials for tissue engineering and drug delivery

“…Bosworth et al reported a way to prepare uniaxially aligned fiber bundles by collecting fibers in a liquid reservoir, and scaffolds mimicking the hierarchical tendon structure could be fabricated using these bundles for tendon regeneration [20]. He et al obtained relatively long and aligned fiber bundles for suture application by using a rotating round disc with high rotation speed as the collector [21].…”

“…Bioactive agents or drugs encapsulated into electrospun nanofibers show steady release characteristics. A model drug tetracycline hydrochloride (TCH) encapsulated into PLLA fibers have been used to fabricated core-shell fibers through coaxial electrospinning [21]. In vitro release study indicated that threads made from the core-shell fibers could suppress the initial burst release and provide a sustained drug release useful for administering growth factor or other therapeutic drugs.…”

Nanosized sustained-release drug depots fabricated using modified tri-axial electrospinning

“…The second is the creation of more complex nanostructures (such as core-shell and Janus systems, and combinations thereof) in order to yield materials with improved functional performance [23][24][25][26]. In the biomedical field, if a drug reservoir could be formed as the core of electrospun core-shell fibers, then new fiber-based nanoscale drug depots could be created, such as an electrospun suture [27]. These would differ significantly from the nanoparticle-based depots which have mainly been explored to date.…”

Optimisation of electrospinning parameter for Poly(L-lactic) acid (PLLA) electrospun nanofiber

“…One of the attractive aspects of the electrospinning technique is the flexibility of the process and that the morphology of the fibres can be readily varied by changing processing conditions, including producing fibres with solid, porous and coreshell morphologies. Solid and porous fibres can be obtained by changing the processing condition such as types of solvents and humidity whilst the core-shell morphology is obtained through setting up the inner and outer needle during electrospinning [2,9,10,27]. In its most basic form, electrospun webs are produced from a relatively simple process that consists of a pipette to hold a dissolved polymer solution, a high voltage source and a collector.…”