Article: Udpa, N; Iyer, S; Mcdonough, SP; Gao, YX; (2016) “Biomechanical Properties of the Meshes Following Implantation in The Rat Abdominal Wall Model”, Journal of Mechanics in Medicine and Biology, 16 (3)
Abstract: The objective of our study was to (1) evaluate mesh strength and collagen incorporation after 4 and 12 weeks of implantation in a rat abdominal wall model and (2) determine the relationship between collagen deposition and mechanical strength of a chitosan-coated polypropylene mesh. We implanted 0.5% chitosan-coated polypropylene mesh (PPM), collagen-coated PPM (PelvitexTM; C.R. Bard), and PPM (Avaulta Solo (R); C.R. Bard) using a rat abdominal defect model. Mechanical properties were determined from uniaxial tensile testing and collagen deposition of each mesh was evaluated 4 and 12 weeks post-implantation. We found that after implantation, the neo tissue of Ch-PPM is stiffer than the commercially available meshes. We also observed no significant difference in the ratio of collagen types I/III between mesh samples at
4 weeks or 12 weeks. We found no relationship between the ratio of collagen types I/III and the mechanical strength of mesh samples after implantation. The increased stiffness with chitosan coating could be due to increased muscle tissue in growth.
Funding Acknowledgement: NSF Graduate Fellowship Research Program
Funding Text: The authors would like to thank Drs. Rohit Rajoria, Bhupinder Singh, and Kate E. Breyer for their assistance with the animal surgeries. We would like to thank Dr. Lawrence Bonassar for use of his equipment. We are also grateful for the generous donation of mesh samples by C.R. Bard Inc., Covington, GA. Natasha Udpa and Shama R. Iyer are funded by the NSF Graduate Fellowship Research Program.