ANGIOGENIC RESPONSE TO POLYPROPYLENE MESH IMPLANT IN A RABBIT MODEL
with Dr. Bryan Brown
Problem Statement
Polypropylene mesh implants are a common treatment for medical conditions such as pelvic organ prolapse. This is a common issue among women, yet the implants often lead to complications. The project I work on aims to identify trends in blood vessel growth after implant in animal models to better understand the healing response and potentially develop methods to improve outcomes. My portion of the project focuses on rabbit studies, comparing abdominal implants to a vaginal implant analogous to the current gold-standard prolapse procedure in humans (sacrocolpopexy). I use staining to identify blood vessel markers in tissue samples.
An initial task of my project involved creating a new staining protocol to identify markers of endothelial cells with immunohistochemistry to visualize blood vessels.
After finding a primary antibody to work in our rabbit model, the process had to be optimized to balance results and resource use. An ideal dilution was found (1:50, bottom left) and implemented.
Originally, angiogenesis was quantified by vessel count alone.
Samples from abdominal and vaginal tissue were were compared to identify any baseline trends at the start of the rabbit trials.
Improved analysis accounts for size.
An expert in the field modified our protocol to add validity to our results. This process is being used to compare angiogenesis at 14 and 90 days post-implantation as we move forward with the project.
Initial results indicate no significant difference between abdominal and vaginal angiogenic response at 14 days.
90 day trends are currently being evaluated.