Biomechanical properties of Achilles tendon repair augmented with a bioadhesive-coated scaffold

The Achilles tendon is the most frequently ruptured tendon. Both acute and chronic (neglected) tendon ruptures can dramatically affect a patient's quality of life, and require a prolonged period of recovery before return to pre-injury activity levels. This paper describes the use of an adhesive-coated biologic scaffold to augment primary suture repair of transected Achilles tendons. The adhesive portion consisted of a synthetic mimic of mussel adhesive proteins that can adhere to various surfaces in a wet environment, including biologic tissues. When combined with biologic scaffolds such as bovine pericardium or porcine dermal tissues, these adhesive constructs demonstrated lap shear adhesive strengths significantly greater than that of fibrin glue, while reaching up to 60% of the strength of a cyanoacrylate-based adhesive. These adhesive constructs were wrapped around transected cadaveric porcine Achilles tendons repaired with a combination of parallel and three-loop suture patterns. Tensile mechanical testing of the augmented repairs exhibited significantly higher stiffness (22-34%), failure load (24-44%), and energy to failure (27-63%) when compared to control tendons with suture repair alone. Potential clinical implications of this novel adhesive biomaterial are discussed.