Leakage is a common complication of surgeries and injuries,
causing
pain and increasing the economic burden on patients. Although there
are commercially available sealants for leakage prevention, few of
them are entirely satisfactory due to disease transmission, high cost,
and poor biocompatibility. In addition, none of them can be controllably
removed for further healthcare. In this paper, by using cohesion design,
a sealant based on amino-modified gelatin (AG) and bi-polyethylene
glycol N-hydroxysuccinimide active ester (Bi-PEG-SS)
was fabricated. To increase the bursting pressure, the cohesion strength
was enhanced by increasing the cross-linking density of the sealant.
To endow the sealant with controllably dissolvable properties, the
smart succinic ester units were introduced into the cohesion network.
Both the in vitro and in vivo experiments showed that this sealant
processed high bursting pressure with efficient hemorrhage control.
Moreover, no side effects were observed after 7 days of in vivo sealing,
including little inflammation and fibrogenesis. These results, together
with the easy availability of the raw materials, revealed that this
sealant might be a promising alternative for leakage sealing.