ABSTRACT
Elastomers, like plastics, are polymers. The term elastomer is currently used to designate all rubbers, i.e., natural or synthetic macromolecular materials with rubberlike elasticity. Medical applications for elastomers appeared soon after they began being produced on an industrial scale (1) following the discovery of vulcanization (crosslinking) in 1839 by the American Charles Goodyear. Over the past 15 years, the literature on biomedical applications for elastomers has grown considerably and reports have appeared regularly (2,3). Yoda (1) recently published a detailed review.
