A study on the effect of degradation media on the physical and mechanical properties of porous PLGA 85/15 scaffolds

Abstract This study investigates the effect of PLGA 85/15 scaffold on the cell growth and viability of a cell line, and the degradation of the scaffold in different media. The cell line used was human promyelocytic leukemia cells (HL‐60). Three different media were considered: distilled water, a phosphate buffered saline (PBS) solution, and HL‐60 cell line. Porous PLGA 85/15 scaffolds were prepared with an optimized gas foaming/salt leaching technique using a NaCl/polymer mass ratio of five, a saturation pressure of 5.52 MPa and a saturation time of 12 h. The cell growth and viability were not impaired by the presence of the scaffold. The mass change of the scaffold due to degradation over the period was varied only by 4% across all three media. The average macropore size and molecular weight decreased as the degradation time increased in each medium. The scaffolds maintained mechanical and structural integrity throughout the study in all three media over the degradation period studied, and the change of Young's modulus of the scaffold under wet condition was not significant. Overall, PBS solution most strongly affected physical and mechanical properties, followed by dH 2 O and HL‐60 cells. The distinct variations of the scaffold's properties using different media, demonstrated the importance of carefully selecting the medium to perform in vitro studies. The medium must replicate the actual environment where the scaffold would be used, to represent accurately the changes in properties that the scaffold would be undergoing. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part B: Appl Biomater, 2009