Fabrication of polymeric composite GTR membrane from eggshell powder, polylactic acid and polyethylene glycol for periodontal application: in vitro evaluation

This study aims to fabricate, characterize and evaluate Guided tissue regeneration (GTR) membrane containing eggshell (ES), chlorhexidine (CHX) and polymeric matrix for periodontal application. ES powder ground to size 74 µm was mixed in Polylactic Acid (PLA) and Polyethylene Glycol (70:30 ratios) mixture in 10% and 30% wt to fabricate the membrane and named groups C-10 and C-30. Along with this, 0.25% and 0.5% CHX powder were adsorbed on ES powder and incorporated in PLA and PEG mixture to fabricate drug containing groups C-10CHX and C-30CHX respectively. UTM was used to measure tensile strength, Young’s Modulus, and percent elongation of the prepared GTR membrane. Experimental groups containing 10% ES powder (C-10 and C-30) had adequate tensile properties. The percent mass change of the samples was calculated by the change in weight of the samples (W_d) from the weight of samples after immersion in phosphate-buffered saline PBS (W_t). Contact angle measurement showed that all membranes were found to be hydrophilic (contact angle<90). Groups containing the drug CHX (C-10CHX and C-30CHX) had significant disc diffusion antibacterial activity. Cell viability assay was carried out by Alamar Blue Assay using mouse fibroblasts NIH3T3 and pre-osteoblasts that indicated very good biocompatibility of the groups (C, C-10, C-30, and C-10CHX) while experimental group C-30CHX showed slight cytotoxicity (Cell Viability >70%).