Injectable Adhesive Hydrogels for Soft tissue Reconstruction: A Materials Chemistry Perspective

Abstract

Injectable bioadhesives offer several advantages over conventional staples and sutures in surgery to seal and close incisions or wounds. Despite the growing research in recent years few injectable bioadhesives are available for clinical use. This review summarizes the key chemical features that enable the development and improvements in the use of polymeric injectable hydrogels as bioadhesives or sealants, their design requirements, the gelation mechanism, synthesis routes, and the role of adhesion mechanisms and strategies in different biomedical applications. It is envisaged that developing a deep understanding of the underlying materials chemistry principles will enable researchers to effectively translate bioadhesive technologies into clinically‐relevant products.

Injectable smart stimuli-responsive hydrogels: pioneering advancements in biomedical applications

“…33,34 In contrast, injectable hydrogels are more attractive and promising than the conventionally generated hydrogels, as they can adapt to the irregular shape of the targeted tissues/defects through a simple injection. [35][36][37] Moreover, injectable hydrogels can reach deep lesions and fill any cavities easily through injection, as well as release the loaded therapeutic cargo to the surrounding tissue for a prolonged time. 38,39 Meanwhile, as a minimally invasive technology through local injection, injectable hydrogels can reduce surgery-induced trauma and blood loss, or even avoid invasive surgery, and overcome the clinical and surgical limitations of traditional hydrogel stenting by tunable sol-gel transition, which has contributed to improved therapeutic efficacy and better patient compliance.…”

Short Peptide Nanofiber Biomaterials Ameliorate Local Hemostatic Capacity of Surgical Materials and Intraoperative Hemostatic Applications in Clinics

“…Some technically combined treatments become capable of probing and intervening the bile duct, pancreatic duct, [27a] and diverticular hemorrhage at high risk. [97] In modern surgery, MIS is often served as first-line treatment by means of physical, chemical, biological, and mechanical modalities to achieve desired intraoperative hemostatic outcomes, [98] such as injectable hemostatic matrix, [99] thermal therapy, [100] endoscopic band ligation (EBL), [95] hemostatic powder, [101] and over-the-scope clips. [102] Although traditional electrical and mechanical hemostatic modalities are still the mainstay, various hemostatic materials and tamponade matrix are the important tools to develop surgical techniques and have achieved safe and robust intraoperative hemostasis in clinical settings, such as fibrin sealant, microfibrillar collagen, oxidized regenerated cellulose, and gelatin.…”

“…[ 102 ] Although traditional electrical and mechanical hemostatic modalities are still the mainstay, various hemostatic materials and tamponade matrix are the important tools to develop surgical techniques and have achieved safe and robust intraoperative hemostasis in clinical settings, such as fibrin sealant, microfibrillar collagen, oxidized regenerated cellulose, and gelatin. [ 99,103 ] Especially in high‐risk conditions, with effective aids of hemostatic material and medical device, mini‐invasive therapy has more significantly reduced the potential complications and at largest extent avoided operative intervention via open surgery. [ 104 ] As MIS is growing in scope and complexity, hemostatic material and medical device are creating further expansion of bleeding indications and greater diversity of surgical techniques for procedural simplification.…”

“…[ 104 ] As MIS is growing in scope and complexity, hemostatic material and medical device are creating further expansion of bleeding indications and greater diversity of surgical techniques for procedural simplification. Especially in injectable adhesive hydrogels [ 99 ] and strong functional biomaterials, [ 105 ] potential medical applications are expanding and new preparations and molecular diversities are also developing to evaluate the intraoperative, post‐operative, and long‐term outcomes in clinics or basic medical research.…”

Stimuli‐Responsive Hydrogel Adhesives for Wound Closure and Tissue Regeneration

“…A large number of studies have shown that the adhesion strength of adhesives are determined by the cohesion energy of bulk hydrogels and adhesion energy between the hydrogels and substrates. [ 21 ] Understanding the adhesion mechanism is essential to design adhesive materials with desired performance.…”