| Abstract Scope |
Biomedical devices span a broad range from surgical tools, implantable cardiac pacemakers, to drug eluting stents. Hundreds of millions of patients have been helped each year for alleviating pain, restoring health, or extending life. The materials that are used to manufacture those biomedical products are generally called biomaterials. It may be thought the biomaterials have some biological signatures so that they are different from the commercial materials. In reality, most of the biomaterials used today were originally borrowed from commercial materials, such as Dacron, stainless steel, polyurethane, etc. They are essentially the same materials as those used for making other products such as space shuttles, paints, toys, etc. However, there are some differences in manufacturing, quality control, and evaluation for biological applications. Those differences and the technologies to manage the differences make commercial materials biomaterials. This presentation will introduce some polymers used in to produce medical devices to the audience. |