Strategies for non-invasive imaging of polymeric biomaterial in vascular tissue engineering and regenerative medicine using ultrasound and photoacoustic techniques

The ability of new polymericmaterials to provide excellent biomechanical properties expanded their potential for biomedical applications enormously. The use of non-invasive imaging modalities could provide crucial information to monitor the efficacy/effectiveness/efficiency of the new materials employed in ‘regenerative’ approaches, including scaffolds, hydrogels, self-assemblingmaterialsandnanosizedstructures.Theassessmentof themorpho-functionalandmetabolicchangesof treated orimplantedtissues, thevisualizationof sites ofdrugdeliveryandthereal-timecheckof thein vivoefficacyof therapeutics could be achieved by non-invasivemicro- and macro-imaging techniques. Themacro- and nano-requirements of these newmaterials and their behaviour in vivo can be investigated using standard approaches such as computed tomography,MRI and ultrasound techniques and the emerging photoacoustic imaging. This paper presents recent advancements of ultrasonography and the novel photoacoustic technique to monitor the morpho-functional parameters of synthetic polymeric scaffolds and conduits in experimental models. ©2016