Investigation of PLA-based scaffolds fabricated via SVM rapid prototyping

Poly-lactic acid (PLA) is a biodegradable polymer that has been well accepted as a tissue engineering scaffold material. Recently, PLA has been applied in selective vacuum manufacturing (SVM), a new RP technique being developed, for fabricating scaffold. For this RP technique to be accepted for this purpose, its fabricated scaffolds must be tested for their properties. This paper presents an investigation of the properties of scaffolds fabricated from SVM technique. The results illustrated that the fabricated PLA scaffolds had porous structure. The porosity was about 71.65% with pore size ranged from 20 to 90 mu m. The compressive modulus of elasticity was 2.07 +/- A 0.25 MPa, lying within the lower range of mechanical properties reported for soft tissue application. An indirect cytotoxicity test showed the cell viability of 75.92% which means that the specimens posed no threat to the cells and could be used as scaffolds for mammalian tissue culture.