Scleral surgical repair through the use of nanostructured fibrin/agarose-based films in rabbits. Carriel Araya, Víctor Vizcaíno López, Gerson Chato Astrain, Jesús Durand Herrera, Daniel Alaminos Mingorance, Miguel Campos Muñoz, Antonio Jesús Sánchez-Montesinos García, Indalecio Campos Sánchez, Fernando Escleral surgical repair Hydrogels Crosslinking Tissue engineering Eyeball Fibrin/agarose Histology This study was supported by Consejería de Salud y Familias, Regional Ministry of Health, Junta de Andalucía, Spain, Grant CS PI-0400-2016 and by Plan Nacional de Investigación Científica, Desarrollo e Innovación Tecnológica, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Spain, Grant FIS PI17/391, co-financed by “Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER),” European Union. Scleral defects can result as a consequence of trauma, infectious diseases or cancer and surgical repair with allogeneic scleral grafts can be required. However, this method has limitations and novel alternatives are needed. Here, the efficacy of acellular nanostructured fibrin-agarose hydrogel-based substitutes (NFAH) in the repair of scleral defects in rabbits was studied. For this, scleral defects of 5-mm diameter were made on 18 adult-male New Zealand rabbits and repaired with acellular NFAH, NFAH crosslinked with genipin (NFAH-GP) or glutaraldehyde (NFAH-GA), allogeneic scleral grafts as control (C-CTR) or not repaired (negative control N-CTR) (n=3 each). Macroscopic and histological analyses were performed after 40-days. Macroscopy confirmed the repair of all defects in a comparable manner than the C-CTR. Histology showed no degradation nor integration in C-CTR while NFAH-GP and NFAH-GA biomaterials were encapsulated by connective and inflammatory tissues with partial biodegradation. The NFAH were fully biodegraded and replaced by a loose connective tissue and sclera covering the defects. This in vivo study demonstrated that the NFAH are a promising biocompatible and pro-regenerative alternative to the use of allogeneic cadaveric grafts. However, large defects and long-term studies are needed to demonstrate the potential clinical usefulness of these substitutes. 2024-03-22T07:54:56Z 2024-03-22T07:54:56Z 2019-09 journal article Published version: Carriel V, Vizcaíno-López G, Chato-Astrain J, et al. Scleral surgical repair through the use of nanostructured fibrin/agarose-based films in rabbits. Exp Eye Res. 2019;186:107717. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exer.2019.107717 https://hdl.handle.net/10481/90173 10.1016/j.exer.2019.107717 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ open access Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License Elsevier