Design of a filamentous polymeric scaffold for in vivo guided angiogenesis.

Angiogenesis is mandatory for reperfusion of viable tissues, and lack of vascularization may cause ischemia. The increasing disparity between the demand and availability of adequate substitutes for small-diameter human blood vessels has prompted an intensive search for artificial materials or biological allograft tissues, both of which usually fail in the long term. The objective of this study was to pioneer a novel model for in vivo guided angiogenesis based on a specific design process of a filamentous polymeric scaffold with endothelial cells in a 3-dimensional culture system.