Facile fabrication of elastic, macro-porous, and fast vascularized silicone orbital implant

Abstract

Orbital implants with interconnected porous architecture had gained prominence, as they were capable of being colonized by fibrovascular tissue and minimizing complications. However, mechanical properties of orbital implant had received little attention among existing design philosophy. Herein, a compliant porous silicone scaffold was developed by gelatin porogen-leaching method and used as the orbital implant in this study. The silicone scaffolds exhibited desired microstructure and simulated mechanical properties, including high porosity of ~90%, suitable pore size of 280-450 μm, reduced modulus of 50.1 ± 11.7 KPa, and excellent elasticity. in vitro results showed that the porous silicone scaffolds did not exhibit noticeable cytotoxicity and were favorable for both adhesion and proliferation of human vascular ECs. The porous silicone scaffold was easy to be manipulated when implanted into the anophthalmic sockets of rabbits. The implanted scaffolds provided satisfactory volume replacement and induced extensive fibro-vascularization, showing desirable orbital reconstruction effects. Therefore, our novel porous silicone scaffolds may be promising substitutes for current orbital implants.