| Description |
Infertility now affects one out of every six marriages in the United States, with dysfunction of the fallopian tubes listed as the major cause of female infertility. Prior techniques focused at alleviating tubal infertility have achieved, at best, only moderate success. It is believed, however, that the technical advances achieved in recent years in such areas as artificial organs and biomaterials warrants consideration of a new approach to the treatment of infertility due to tubal dysfunction. It is proposed, therefore, that an artificial fallopian tube be designed that could alleviate infertility due to the absence or dysfunction of the natural fallopian tubes. The purpose of this work was to identify and evaluate the criteria requisite for constructing an artificial fallopian tube. Several well-characterized polymeric materials were evaluated for their biocompatibility towards the cells unique to reproduction. To accomplish these studies, several in vitro tests with well-defined protocols were developed which allowed the biocompatibility interactions between the test polymers and spermatozoa, ova, and embryos to be studied. The data from these studies showed large differences between the materials in terms of their biocompatibility towards the sperm's motility, the sperm's ability to penetrate zona-free hamster eggs, and the ability of two-cell mouse embros to grow and divide. Polytetrafluoroethylene, polyethylene glycol, and polyhydroxyethyl methacrylate appear to be the most inert of the materials studied. Polyvinyl chloride was found to be the most detrimental material towards gametes and embryos, with gross morphological changes observed in the PVC-exposed cells. The data would also indicate that the hydrophobic-hydrophilic nature of a material does not appear to be a major determinant as to its gamete biocompatibility, but that the materials additives or contaminants may play substantial roles. The results reported in this dissertation would suggest that due to the complex nature of the biological systems studied that no single material property or biocompatibility test should be used as a criteria for material-gamete biocompatibility assessment. |
