ABSTRACT
Polymer materials have generated remarkable interest in a number of innovative domains for biomedical applications. Today there is a great need to develop and design polymers for better interaction with biosystems that include the blood and tissue compatibility such as implants or supplementary materials (vascular grafts, articial hearts, sutures, intraocular lenses, and catheters). These kinds of systems require certain criteria for their performance in specic medical, surgery, and pharmaceutical applications, which take into account the mechanical behavior, compatibility, hydrophilicity, immune and biological response (Gupta and Anjum 2003). The use of implants and medical devices has become a leading cause of health-care-related bloodstream infections, which are associated with considerable morbidity and mortality (Schierholz and Beuth 2001; Castner and Ratner 2002; Raad and Hanna 2002; Raad et al. 2007). In many cases, a polymer material in contact
10.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 267 10.2 Polymers in Biomedical Uses (Morphology, Structure, and Function) ................................268
