BACKGROUND: In vitro construction of tissue engineered cardiac muscle becomes a hot spot in recent years, and the selection and design of scaffold is the key link. However, there is lack of ideal cardiac tissue engineering scaffold material. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the novel biodegradable polyurethane in vitro, and to discuss the feasibility of polyurethane as cardiac tissue engineeru scaffold. METHODS: A new type polyurethane (PV-Lys) was synthesized using diphenylmethane-4,4'-diisocyanate as hard segment and lysine as expand chain. The tensile and suture strength were tested in vitro respectively, hydrolytic degradation was carded out in phosphate buffer saline of pH 7.4 at 37 ℃, and cytotoxicity was evaluated by MTT measurement and morphological observation. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The tensile strength of the polyurethane was up to (8.1±0.1) MPa, and the suture strength was (12.2+0.8) N. The average value of the mass loss of PV-Lys was (13.1+0.3)% at 8 weeks of in vitro hydrolytic degradation. MTT assay results showed that the cytotoxic grade of the novel PV-Lys was 0-1. Cell morphology observation showed that the L929 cells were spindle-shaped or tdangular with good stretch. This PV-Lys scaffold is with favorable mechanical property, cytocompatibility, biodegradable property, which meets the requirements of tissue engineering application.