Mohammed Salman Shazeeb1,
2, Stuart Howes2, Sivakumar Kandasamy2,
Christopher H. Sotak, 12, George Pins2
1Radiology,
University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, United States; 2Biomedical
Engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, United States
The in vivo evaluation of the remodeling of soft biomaterial implants often involves surgical removal of the implant for subsequent histological assessment. This approach is very resource intensive, it is often destructive, and imposes practical limitations on how effectively these materials can be evaluated. MRI has the potential to non-invasively monitor the remodeling of collagen scaffolds. This study investigated the development of a model system to evaluate the remodeling of implanted collagen scaffolds using MRI and conventional histological techniques. Significant correlations were found between the MRI and histological parameters demonstrating that MRI is sensitive to specific remodeling parameters.