ABSTRACT
Over the last 30 years since the development of the first woven and knitted polyester arterial grafts, the technology has moved through a number of generations to new and specialized variants, each claiming to have improved handling and healing characteristics or greater durability when implanted in specific sites.
In an attempt to overcome the difficulties of tissue infiltration experienced by woven prostheses, several models of “woven velour” grafts have recently emerged as novel hybrids between the woven and knitted velour structures. Two new prototype woven velour prostheses of different water permeabilities (LP, low-porosity and HP, high-porosity) with an externally wound polypropylene monofilament wrap, were exposed to a series of in vitro tests with the objective of assessing their novel structures, physical properties and surface chemistry, and to compare them against five other commercial woven prostheses.
The LP graft appears to have a strong and stable structure with superior suture retention strength in all three directions, and water permeability near that of the Meadox Woven Double Velour graft. On the other hand, the HP graft has excessively high water permeability for a woven graft, low suture retention strength, and low bursting strength. This evidence suggests that the clinical use of these grafts as vascular substitutes would appear to be safe for the LP but not necessarily so for the HP.
