Abstract 83: Vascular Perfusion and Biointegration of a Large Volume Synthetic Pedicled Flap Scaffold

RESULTS: DCM showed markedly better gross incorporation than all other groups at 30 and 60 days, and were the only implants to contract upon direct electrical stimulation. Histologically, the commercially available ADM’s demonstrated encapsulation at both 30 and 60 days, and StratticeTM showed peripheral hypercellularity and central acellularity, whereas native decellularized matrices showed integration. DCM CD-31 immunofluorescence revealed a developed microvascular network at 60 days, whereas AlloDerm®, DCD and defect demonstrated less neovasculature. StratticeTM showed no vascular ingrowth whatsoever. Native matrices showed evidence of MHC-positive myocytes within the peripheral regions of the implants at 30 and 60 days in a chronologically increasing fashion. Defect alone, AlloDerm® and StratticeTM demonstrated no such MHC signal at any time point. At 30 days, it was impossible to isolate enough RNA from our StratticeTM implants for qPCR analysis. Equally at 30 days, DCM showed no significant difference to control in terms of COX-2 expression, whereas AlloDerm® and DCD showed a significant increase from control (p≤0.05) and also expressed significantly more TNF-α than DCM (p≤0.01). At 60 days, DCM expression of COX-2 and TNF-α was significantly inferior to all other implants. There was significantly less collagen1a gene expression in DCM as compared to AlloDerm® at 30 days, and at 60 days significantly less than in StratticeTM (p≤0.05) and DCD (p≤0.01). Alpha-smooth muscle actin expression was significantly elevated in AlloDerm® at 60 days compared to DCM, and connective tissue growth factor was more highly expressed in all matrices when compared to DCM. MyoD expression was significantly higher than control in DCM at both 30 and 60 days.