Biomedical modification of poly(L‐lactide) by blending with lecithin

Abstract Lecithin was, for the first time, blended with PLLA to prepare scaffold material for tissue engineering applications in the present study. Solution blending was used to incorporate Lecithin (containing 0–10 wt %) with PLLA to enhance the blend films biocompatibility, hydrophilicity and toughness while maintaining mechanical strength of PLLA. The results of FTIR‐ATR analysis indicated that the amino groups of lecitin existed in the films. DSC analysis indicated that T_g decreased with the increase of lecithin content in the blend films. The percentage elongation markedly increased with increase of lecithin content. The proliferation and viability of the vascular smooth muscle cell cultures on PLLA/Lecithin (containing 3–7 wt %) films were significantly enhanced compared to pure PLLA on tissue culture plates. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res, 2007