Superabsorbent, freeze dried hydrogels for medical applications

摘要

Methods are provided for making freeze dried hydrogel and structures therefrom that may be introduced into a patient's body for medical applications. Precursor components are combined to initiate crosslinking. The combined precursor components are placed in a chilled tray, and allowed to crosslink to a desired level of complete crosslinking before and/or after being placed onto the tray. The partially crosslinked hydrogel is frozen and freeze dried. After freeze drying, the hydrogel is conditioned to substantially complete crosslinking, and formed into one or more structures, e.g., plugs, hemostatic, or other medical devices. For example, the hydrogel may be cut, machined, rolled, folded, compressed, and/or cored into that may be loaded into delivery devices that may be introduced into a body to implant or otherwise deliver the structures into the body, e.g., to seal a puncture or other passage through tissue.

主权项

1. A method for making superabsorbent hydrogel, comprising:
forming a mixture by combining precursor components to initiate covalent crosslinking of the precursor components; placing the combined precursor components onto a chilled tray or container; freezing the mixture before the covalent crosslinking is complete; and freeze drying the frozen mixture to form the hydrogel, wherein the precursor components comprise a first electrophilic precursor that comprises electrophilic functional groups and a second nucleophilic precursor that comprises nucleophilic functional groups chosen from the group consisting of amines and thiols, with the electrophilic functional groups and nucleophilic functional groups chemically reacting with each other to form covalent bonds to crosslink the precursor components.