Application of Ultrasound on Monitoring the Evolution of the Collagen Fiber Reinforced nHAC/CS CompositesIn Vivo

To date, fiber reinforce scaffolds have been largely applied to repair hard and soft tissues. Meanwhile, monitoring the scaffolds for long periodsin vivois recognized as a crucial issue before its wide use. As a consequence, there is a growing need for noninvasive and convenient methods to analyze the implantation remolding processin situand in real time. In this paper, diagnostic medical ultrasound was used to monitor thein vivobone formation and degradation process of the novel mineralized collagen fiber reinforced composite which is synthesized by chitosan (CS), nanohydroxyapatite (nHA), and collagen fiber (Col). To observe the impact of cells on bone remodeling process, the scaffolds were planted into the back of the SD rats with and without rat bone mesenchymal stem cells (rBMSCs). Systematic data of scaffoldsin vivowas extracted from ultrasound images. Significant consistency between the data from the ultrasound and DXA could be observedP<0.05. This indicated that ultrasound may serve as a feasible alternative for noninvasive monitoring the evolution of scaffoldsin situduring cell growth.