Frontiers and therapeutic applications of poly (ε-caprolactone): Tissue engineering, medical implants, microbial infections, diabetic wounds, and cancers

Synthetic and natural polymers as important biomaterials have achieved great interest in a variety of biomedical and pharmaceutical fields. Among the synthetic polymers, the bioactive properties of poly (ε-caprolactone) (PCL) polymer favor its application in biomedical and pharmaceutical applications. This synthetic polymer as a versatile platform has been applied in tissue engineering and medical implants as three-dimensional scaffolds and in microbial infections, diabetic wounds, and cancers as drug micro- and nanocarriers. As the major benefits, PCL has illustrated cost-effective, easy availability, biocompatibility, biodegradability, and mechanical features with simple modification. However, this polymer has shown poor hydrophilicity and a long degradation cycle as clinical limitations, which can be improved by novel formulations of PCL with synthetic and natural biomaterials.