ABSTRACT
Medical textiles are one of the most dynamically expanding sectors in the technical textile market. Growth rates are above average as a result of increases in consumption in developing countries in Asia and growth rates in the Western market. The prospects for medical textiles are rather better, especially for nonwoven materials and disposable medical textiles used in surgical rooms. Medical textile is dened as “ber-based products and structures used in rst aid or the clinical treatment of a wound or medical condition.” Hygiene textiles are dened as those that “deal with the absorption of bodily waste products.” The textile materials for medical and healthcare products range from simple gauze or bandage materials to scaffolds for tissue culturing and a large variety of prostheses for permanent body implants. Surgeons’ wear, wound dressings, bandages, articial ligaments, sutures, articial liver/kidney/lungs, nappies, sanitary towels, vascular grafts/heart valves, articial joints/bones, eye contact lenses, and articial cornea are some of the examples of medical textiles. Textile materials used in the medical and applied healthcare and hygiene sectors are an important and growing part of the textile industry.
