ABSTRACT
Mature manufacturing processes developed for the production of plastic parts and metal stents have been successfully adapted to produce bioresorbable scaffolds. The processing conditions of a bioresorbable polymer significantly impact the mechanical properties of the scaffold and must be carefully controlled during fabrication. The crystallinity of the polymer can be modified during the cooling of the melted polymer or by heating an amorphous polymer to the crystallization temperature until crystals form. The spherulitic morphology is most commonly seen in melt processed materials. Scaffolds are produced from rigid, extruded tubes. The fibrous tubes are stiffened to increase crush resistance by increasing the crystallinity of the fibers, filling the void space between the fibers with a bioresorbable matrix material, and/or by interconnecting the nanofiber at crossover points. A scaffold is created from a polymer tube by laser micromachining a strut pattern in the tube's wall thickness. The design of the scaffold is modeled using computer aided design/computer aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) software.
