Hyperdry human amniotic membrane is useful material for tissue engineering: Physical, morphological properties, and safety as the new biological material. Issue 3 (21st June 2013) - Okabe, Motonori
Abstract Human amniotic membrane (AM) has been used widely as graft biomaterial for a variety of clinical applications. But, there are some persistent problems related to the preparation, storage, and sterilization. To resolve these problems, we developed hyperdry AM (HD‐AM) using far‐infrared rays, depression of air, and microwaves and then sterilized by γ‐ray irradiation. To elucidate the benefit of HD‐AM as biological materials, compare with the physical and histological properties of HD‐AM with a freeze‐dried AM (FD‐AM) as typical freeze‐dried methods, evaluate the safety of HD‐AM in vivo experiment used nude mice, and demonstrate the feasibility of HD‐AM transplant in pterygium. The water permeability and the sieving coefficient of HD‐AM were significantly lower than that of FD‐AM. HD‐AM has kept the morphological structure of epithelium and connective tissues. At 18 months after transplanted, single and multilayers of HD‐AM in the intraperitoneal cavity was degraded without any infiltrated cells. For clinical treatment, recurrence of pterygium and regrowth of the subconjunctival fibrosis were not observed during the 6‐month follow‐up periods after the surgery. It was proposed that HD‐AM was a safe and effective new biological material for clinical use including treatment for recurrent pterygium. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part A: 102A: 862–870, 2014.