(203a) Supramolecular fibrous hydrogels for treating pelvic organ prolapse

Pelvic organ prolapse (POP) is a common pelvic floor disorder that affects approximately 50% of women who have given birth, significantly impacting their quality of life. There is a tremendous clinical need for improved therapeutic approaches to this challenge with the FDA’s recent removal of transvaginal mesh kits from the market and the relatively high failure rates of native tissue suture-based repairs. We recently developed an injectable fibrous hyaluronic acid (HA) hydrogel to augment native tissue repairs of POP and tested its efficacy in a small animal model we invented. Supramolecularly-assembled HA hydrogel nanofibers encapsulated in a matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-degradable HA hydrogel created an injectable scaffold showing excellent biocompatibility and hemocompatibility. The hydrogel could be successfully delivered and localized to the surgery site, where it gradually degraded over 6 weeks. . Together, these results support the potential of this hydrogel platform to augment native tissue POP repair.