Biomedical applications artificial joints

Application of ECM in the field of biomedical engineering is well known [64, 85-87]. Stainless steel plates for use in bone surgery and artificial joints (e.g. hip... 

The application of polymeric materials in medicine is a fairly specialized area with a wide range of specific applications and requirements. Although the total volume of polymers used in this application may be small compared to the annual production of polyethylene, for example, the total amount of money spent annually on prosthetic and biomedical devices exceeds 16 billion in the United States alone. These applications include over a million dentures, nearly a half billion dental fillings, about six million contact lenses, over a million replacement joints (hip, knee, finger, etc.), about a half million plastic surgery operations (breast prosthesis, facial reconstruction, etc.), over 25,000 heart valves, and 60,000 pacemaker implantations. In addition, over AO,000 patients are on hemodialysis units (artificial kidney) on a regular basis, and over 90,000 coronary bypass operations (often using synthetic polymers) are performed each year (]J. 

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