Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Identifier

2710

Date

2016

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Biomedical Engineering

Committee Chair

Warren Haggard

Committee Member

Joel Bumgardner

Committee Member

Harry Courtney

Committee Member

William Mihalko

Abstract

Surgeries to treat musculoskeletal wounds need to inhibit or prevent contaminating bacteria from causing an infection for optimal wound healing. Current local drug delivery biomaterial systems, such as bone cemeent beads and chitosan paste, do not fully degrade and/or do not offer full wound coverage which may limit the efficacy of antibiotic therapy, respectively. Chitosan paste is a biocompatibile, degradable, local drug delivery system which allows for complete wound coverage and decreases the diffusion distance of antibiotics to bacteria. This research used blended chitosan-polyethylene glycol (PEG) pastes to improve biocompatibility, increased degradation rate, and provide efficient and effective elution of locally delivered antibiotics for musculoskeletal wounds. PEG-blended chitosan pastes were tested against previously studied acidic chitosan paste and neutral 1% chitosan sponge. The PEG-blended pastes also were fabricated to have lower acidity compared to past formulations to improve biocompatibility, maintain degradation properties, and to decrease the fabrication time. The blended chitosan/PEG pastes were shown to be biocompatible and released active antibiotics to prevent or eliminate infections in vivo.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to the local University of Memphis Electronic Theses & dissertation (ETD) Repository.

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