Optimizing the Drug Delivery of a Composite Hydrogel Structure for the Wound Healing

Conventional treatments have been unsuccessful in complete recovery of skin, so skin regeneration has a significant role in medicine and engineering. As it is known, the burnt area is a suitable place for bacteria accumulation and migration of host immune cells. Therefore, prevention of burn infections is one of the most important factors that affects on the recovery process. According to recent studies, mupirocin is one of the most appropriate antibiotics for local treatment of burn injuries. In this research, hydrogel scaffold containing mupirocin is used to make hydrogel from the combination of two biodegradable and biocompatible polymers including chitosan and polyvinyl alcohol. According to recent experiments, mixture of polyvinyl alcohol and chitosan (1: 1 vol. %), is the best combination for hydrogel structure.The tests for investigation the physical and biological properties of the prepared specimen include Mechanical Properties test (stress-strain test) for evaluation the scaffold in the range of native skin tensile strength, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) test for microstructures observation and calculation the porosity that has a close relationship with cell growth, Drug Release Test, which is one of the most important researches that has been done on the designed system in this study.Due to the performed tests and comparison of different specimens, it can be said that the most optimum hydrogel, is hydrogel with glutaraldehyde because the addition of glutaraldehyde increases the porosity diameter ratio in comparison to non glutaraldehyded one and can be used as a diameter controller. It can also be concluded that system will have the capability of responding to requirements for skin tissue engineering and providing required properties for a controlled and stable drug release for tissue regeneration in wound area.