Intravascular-Delivered Hollow Hydrogel Microfiber Without Blood Flow Interruption

This paper proposes a two-layered hollow hydrogel microfiber for cell therapy. Our proposed hydrogel microfiber has a tube-like hollow structure with embedded tissues, enabling to be retained in a blood vessel for a long period of time without interfering with blood flow. In this paper, as a proof of concept, we examined hollow hydrogel microfibers for intravascular delivery without blood flow interruption. By using a two-layered co-axial microfluidic device, a hollow hydrogel microfiber was formed. The hollow microfiber was delivered into a blood vessel model and shown to be fixed without interrupting fluid flow in the blood vessel model. Furthermore, as an in vivo test using a rat, the hollow fibers with X-ray visibility were delivered to rat kidneys with the angiographic agent, Lipiodol, to confirm that the hollow fibers could be retained in vivo without interfering with blood flow. We believe that our proposed hollow hydrogel microfiber would be an effective intravascular cell-delivery platform in clinical practice for cell therapy.