[Study on computer-aided deposition manufacturing of vascular tissue engineering scaffolds at low temperature]

Since there is a clinical need for the tissue-engineered vascular graft (TEVG), fabricating the vascular scaffold individually appears to be necessary. In this work, we have developed the traditional tubular scaffold and branch vascular scaffold utilizing low-temperature deposition manufacturing (LDM) technology. Then different tubular scaffolds were fabricated by changing the processing parameters, and the morphological properties of the scaffolds were assessed. The scaffolds reproduced the structure of 3D vascular model accurately. Wall thickness of the scaffold increased with the increase of velocity ratio (V(L)/V(s)) and nozzle temperature, and both the micropore size and wall roughness were positively correlated with the nozzle temperature. However, the porosity was barely affected by the nozzle temperature. This approach, fabricating vascular scaffold with special structure and appearance features via LDM technology, is potential for the individual fabrication of vascular scaffold.