European Cells and Materials
In Vivo Evaluation of a Multilayered, Fibrin-Agarose Urethral Substitute Generated by Tissue Engineering
By Olimpia Ortiz‐Arrabal, José‐Andrés Moreno‐Delgado, Fernando Campos and 8 others.
Abstract
Background
Tissue engineered urethral substitutes could offer alternative approaches for urethral regeneration. In this work, we generated and evaluated in vivo a multilayered urethral substitute generated with nanostructured fibrin-agarose biomaterials.
Methods
A three-layered urethral substitute was generated and grafted to repair surgically induced penile urethra defects in rabbits (acellular multilayered urethral substitute graft (UREG)). Native urethras served as positive controls (positive control (P-CTR)), unrepaired defects as negative controls (negative control (N-CTR)), and oral mucosa autograft (AUTO), as the gold standard treatment. Results were analyzed after 3 months for surgical feasibility, complications, urine stain patterns and histological, histochemical and immunohistochemical analyses.
