Acrylic-based hydrogel phantom forin vitroultrasound contrast agent characterization

Abstract

Phantoms are commonly used to perform several tasks within the field of medical imaging and radiation therapy. A novel approach to the manufacture of polymeric phantom for tissue mimicking applications by means of stereolithography (SL) is presented. A water solution of polyethylene glycol diacrylate (PEGDA) and a blend of proprietary photoinitiators were used. An SL device was modified with a custom designed elevatordriven build table with the aim of reducing the material volume during the building process. The second step of this work was addressed to the manufacture of a prototype mimicking a simplified vascular system. The prototype was drawn using a computeraided-design package and the resulting geometric data were used to drive the SL process leading finally to the fabrication a PEGDA phantom. A preliminary echographic study was also carried out to verify the phantom suitability for in in vitro ultrasound contrast agent characterization.

Hydrogel based tissue mimicking phantom for in‐vitro ultrasound contrast agents studies

“…In the future, the employment of a stereolithographic 3D technique on a photopolymerizable PEG‐diacrylate‐based hydrogel will ensure an increase in geometry and performances of the phantom system, allowing shaping reproduction very close to the real human liver, studied with highly accurate imaging modalities (like magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography, etc.) 23. This phantom will be employed in the next future for further in‐vitro characterization of experimental US CAs.…”

Development of Semi- and Grafted Interpenetrating Polymer Networks Based on Poly(Ethylene Glycol) Diacrylate and Collagen

“…Rapid prototyping techniques, such as SLA, are particularly attractive in the biomaterial field for the production of customizable biomimetic constructs. Application of SLA to PEG-based hydrogels has been reported in the literature (15, 16, 18, 31), as well as the use of SLA to produce cell-loaded hydrogels with defined macrostructure (15, 16). Such hydrogels have been proposed either as tissue engineering platforms (15, 16, 18) or as tissue mimicking phantoms (31, 32) for in vitro studies.…”

“…An SLA 250 device (3D System, Valencia, CA, USA), operating with a He-Cd laser emitting at 325 nm, was modified with a custom-designed elevator-driven build table, described in detail elsewhere (31). This system was designed to use a reduced volume (from 0.3 up to 3 kg) of polymeric solution or suspension compared with that of the standard SLA tank (43 kg).…”