Embolic materials have been commonly used to treat various vascular diseases such as arteriovenous malformation (AVM) and cerebral aneurysms. Pt coil is considered as the best material among many embolic materials because of its safety, stability, and easy handling. It, however, could not always achieve complete treatment; often causes reflow of blood into the target lesion and it requires repeated embolization. This phenomenon is due to its low occlusion efficiency that is determined by packing density and formation of a thrombus by an embolic material. Many attempts to improve the occlusion efficiency have been conducted using polymer particle materials, viscous liquid materials, and liquid-to-solid gelling system. Some materials showed better embolization efficiency than Pt coil but their toxicity, instability, and hard handling limited their use in treatment.<br/>In this work, we suggest a novel embolic material using polymer hydrogel containing radiopaque organic compound. The basic concept of this work is to make a ‘bilayer’ hydrogel composed of two hydrogels that have different swelling ratio each other. Acrylic acid (AA) was copolymerized with triidobenzoyloxoethyl methacrylate (TIBOM), a radiopaque compound, and poly(ethyleneglycol dimethacrylate) (PEGDM), a crosslinker, to form a hydrogel. The degree of crosslinking was determined by the ratio of AA to PEGDM, and it also affected to swelling ratio of a hydrogel. A ‘bilayer’ hydrogel was fabricated by forming one hydrogel onto another hydrogel using photo-lithography. It would be bent in water and finally rolled up like a ‘coil’ by different swelling ratio if two hydrogels have different degree of crosslinking (<b>Figure</b>). The coils were fabricated in various diameters (0.5 – 2.3 mm) by controlling the difference of swelling ratios of bilayered hydrogels. The packing density obtained from experiment using glass aneurysm model (67 – 72%) was higher than average value of Pt coils (32%). The radiopacity of the hydrogel coil was similar with human bone, and it was considered to be enough to use as an embolic material.

Fabrication and characterization of a radiopaque embolic hydrogel coil

249th National Meeting (2015)

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