Semi-quantitative elemental imaging of corrosion products from bioabsorbable Mg vascular implants in vivo

While metal materials historically have served as permanent implants and were designed to avoid degradation, next generation bioabsorbable metals for medical devices such as vascular stents are under development, which would elute metal ions and corrosion byproducts into tissues. The fate of these eluted products and their local distribution in vascular tissue largely under studied. In this study, we employ a high spatial resolution spectrometric imaging modality, laser ablation inductively coupled plasma time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-TOF-MS) to map the metal distribution, (herein refered to as laser ablation mapping, or LAM) from Mg alloys within the mouse vascular system and approximate their local concentrations. We used a novel rare earth element bearing Mg alloy (WE22) wire implanted within the abdominal aorta of transgenic hypercholesterolemic mice (APOE-/-) to simulate a bioabsorbable vascular prosthesis for up to 30 days. We describe qualitatively and semi-quantitatively implant-derived corrosion product presence throughout the tissue cross sections, and their approximate concentrations within the various vessel structures. Additionally, we report the spatial changes of corrosion products, which we postulate are mediated by phagocytic inflammatory cells such as macrophages (MΦ's).