Bioadhesives for soft tissue integration

Abstract

This thesis work revolves around preparing a hydrogel-based biomaterial that can facilitate the skin cells sealing around percutaneous osseointegrated prosthesis. Osseointgerated prosthesis mostly made of the titanium metal due to its inertness and biocompatibility suffers from limitation of integrating with the skin cells due to foreign body reaction and lesser hemidesmosomal junction formation between the cells and the implant, commonly called epithelial down growth. Due to this a gap is left between the implant and skin leading to the loosening of the implant and paving the way to pathogen attack which further worsen the situation and ultimately the implant needs a revision surgery or replacement. To seal this gap the traditional suturing and stapling methods are also not effective due to its location. A new approach of using some type of hydrogel-based adhesive can be good alternative. Hydrogel based bandages and scaffolds have already been in use for injury repair and sealing of wounds. The hydrogels commonly in use are synthetic polymer based like the cyanoacrylate though these possess very good mechanical properties still this produce toxic compound upon their degradation, so using some bio-polymer like protein or a carbohydrate is a practical solution. However, the naturally crosslinked polymers are not that good biomaterials. Some crosslinker like the catechol group containing polyphenols (Dopamine and Quercetin) have been tried human hair keratin was chosen. Due to its cheap availability form different waste sources and good biocompatibility Keratin also belong to the epithelial. Keratin was extracted and characterized then a hydrogel was prepared using a combination of both physical (freeze thaw) and chemical crosslinking mechanism (Michael addition using polyphenols i.e., quercetin and dopamine). Hydrogel was then analyzed and tested for its structure swelling capabilities and cytocompatibility and for its ability to hold the cells.