Liquid Copolymers as Biodegradable Surgical Sealant

Abstract

Surgical sealants are widely used to prevent seepage of fluids and liquids, promote hemostasis, and close incisions. Despite the remarkable progress the field of biomaterials has undergone, the clinical uses of surgical sealants are limited because of their short persistence time in vivo, toxicity, and high production costs. Here, the development of two complementary neat (solvent-free) prepolymers, PEG 4 -PLGA-NHS and PEG 4 -NH 2 , that harden upon mixing to yield an elastic biodegradable sealant is presented. The mechanical and rheological properties and cross-linking rate can be controlled by varying the ratio between the two prepolymers. The tested sealants show a longer persistence time compared with fibrin glue, minimal cytotoxicity in vitro, and excellent biocompatibility in vivo. The neat, multiarmed approach demonstrated here improves the mechanical and biocompatibility properties and provides a promising tissue sealant solution for wound closure in future surgical procedures.

Progress of tissue adhesives based on proteins and synthetic polymers

“…Shimony et al prepared liquid copolymers as a new type of TAs [ 144 ] because the prepolymers hardens upon mixing of PEG 4 -PLGA-NHS and PEG 4 -NH 2 to yield an elastic biodegradable sealant. The TAs exhibited longer persistence time with stronger mechanical properties than fibrin glue in vitro although the mechanical properties and crosslinking time are dependent on the ratio of the two prepolymers.…”

Polymer nanomaterials for use as adjuvant surgical tools

“…Hong et al investigates a gelatin–hyaluronic acid‐derived system that necessitates a toxic, ultraviolet light source for in situ gelation at incision site on pig intestine (~40 kPa), while Bu et al employs use of PEG‐NHS ester chemistry that requires a 5‐min gelation period before testing and aforementioned concerns of concentration‐dependent toxicity and dual‐syringe injection (Bu et al, 2019; Hong et al, 2019). Other gelatin (Assmann et al, 2017; Luo et al, 2019), NHS ester (Kelmansky et al, 2017; Shimony et al, 2021; Sun et al, 2020), and blended hydrogel (Annabi et al, 2017; Anthis et al, 2021; Jeon et al, 2019; Z. Zhang et al, 2018) systems have been studied as surgical sealant materials, yet they present moderate burst pressure values and encounter great concerns stemming from their prefabricated form.…”

Elastomeric, bioadhesive and pH-responsive amphiphilic copolymers based on direct crosslinking of poly(glycerol sebacate)-co-polyethylene glycol

“…PEG is FDA approved for many biomedical applications, for example it is widely used as a bioadhesive polymer in several applications like bioglue and drug delivery systems. 61,62 Furthermore, one of the usual techniques to develop bioadhesives is to conjugate PEG chains to the specified molecules, i.e. PEGylation.…”