Methods for Treating Body Tissue

Abstract

Methods of treating body tissue including repairing defects in body tissue as well as augmenting body tissue. Body tissue defects are repaired by injecting a polymeric adhesive composition through an injector into the region of the defect and allowing the adhesive composition to cure to repair the defect or to form an implant that adheres to at least one surface tissue in the region of the defect. Body tissue is augmented by filling a defect void with a polymeric adhesive composition and allowing it to cure.

1 . A method of augmenting body tissue, comprising:
 filling a defect void in body tissue with a curable polymeric adhesive composition; and   allowing the adhesive composition to cure, thereby augmenting the body tissue.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the curable polymeric adhesive composition comprises a curable polymer and a chemical crosslinker. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein the chemical crosslinker is pre-mixed with the curable polymer before the filling step. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising applying a chemical crosslinker to the defect void. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein the chemical crosslinker is a diisocyanate. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the curable polymeric adhesive composition comprises a curable protein copolymer solution. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the curable polymeric adhesive composition comprises repeating blocks of amino acid sequence. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the curable polymeric adhesive composition comprises a network of repeating polymer chains including elastin-like and fibroin-like sequences. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein the curable polymeric adhesive composition is cured by chemically crosslinking the elastin-like sequences. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the polymeric adhesive composition has a lap shear tensile strength of at least about 250 g/cm 2  when cured. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 10 , wherein the polymeric adhesive composition has said lap shear tensile strength of at least about 300 g/cm 2  within a cure time of about 5 to about 30 minutes. 
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the polymeric adhesive composition has a lap shear tensile strength of about 100 g/cm 2  to about 4000 g/cm 2  when cured.