Patent ID: 7951936

Claim:
A process for producing a polysaccharide sponge consisting of a crosslinked polysaccharide obtained by crosslinking a photoreactive polysaccharide, and having the following properties (1), (2) and (3) wherein said photoreactive polysaccharide is hyaluronic acid to which a photo-crosslinking group having cinnamic acid, aminocinnamic acid, furyl acrylic acid or thiophene acrylic acid as a photoreactive residue, is bonded (1) not less than 760 pores per unit area (1 mm 2 ) among which not less than 50% of said pores have a pore diameter of 10 to 50 μm (2) a water content, calculated from the following formula, is not less than 70% {(Ww−Wd)/Ww}×100 wherein Ww is a weight of the sponge when immersed in an injection water for five seconds, and Wd is a weight of the sponge after completely removing water from the water-immersed sponge using a filter paper and (3) a breaking strength of a polysaccharide sponge, which is prepared from 2 weight % hyaluronic acid solution, is not less than 191.6 g as measured a maximum stress caused when a spherical probe having a diameter of 12.5 mm was pressed against the fixed sponge at a velocity of 1 mm/second by a texture analyzer, the process comprising the steps of (A) freezing the photoreactive polysaccharide solution; and (B) irradiating the frozen photoreactive polysaccharide solution with light to crosslink the photoreactive polysaccharide, thereby obtaining the polysaccharide sponge.