Flexible medical products

Uses Plasticizer in PVC flooring and other flexible PVC products (e.g., bottles, garden hoses, fishing lures, fabric coatings, flexible medical plastics, tarps, and awnings), films, and sheets in vacuum pumps. Also used in fluorescent lighting ballasts manufactured after 1979 as a replacement for PCBs (U.S. EPA, 1998). 

DEHP also can enter your body during certain medical procedures, and medical exposures are likely to be greater than any environmental exposures. Blood products that are stored in plastic bags and used for transfusions contain from 4.3 to 1,230 parts of DEHP per million parts of blood (ppm). Other plastic medical products also release DEHP. Flexible tubing used to administer fluids or medication can transfer DEHP to the patient. The plastic tubing used for kidney dialysis frequently contains DEHP and causes DEHP to enter the patient s blood. DEHP... 

Dip Molding. Instead of a heated product, a heated male mold is dip-coated in the same way. In this case, the final flexible vinyl product is stripped off of the mold. A typical product is medical gloves. 

Basel, Switzerland, 25th-26th Oct.2000, paper 1 FLEXIBLE VINYL MEDICAL PRODUCTS DISCUSSION ABOUT THE EXTRACTION CHARACTERISTICS OF VARIOUS PLASTICISERS Adams R C BP Amoco Chemicals (Rapra Technology Ltd.)... 

Phthalate esters are widely used in the production of plastics, particularly vinyl plastics, to add flexibility to products made with these materials. DEHP is commonly used in medical devices, including cardiac catheters, endotracheal tubes, and certain implanted devices, while DINP is more often found in wires and cables, hoses, and plastic toys. DEHP is also used in plastic containers, such as those used for food. These phthalates are not bound chemically to the plastic but are physically dissolved in it. 

Virtually all forms of flexible packaging find some use in either pharmaceutical or medical products. Pack forms include ... 

Films of EAA are also used in flexible packaging of meat, cheese, snack foods, and medical products in skin packaging and in adhesive lamination. Extrusion coating applications include condiment and food packages, coated paperboard, aseptic cartons, composite cans, and toothpaste tubes. FDA regulations permit use of up to 25% acrylic acid for copolymers of ethylene in direct food contact. 

Adams R C, Comparison of Plasticizer for Use in Flexible Vinyl Medical Products, Medical Device Diagnostic Ind., April 2001. 

Many medical products have moved from rigid to flexible packages. Kendall Health Care switched from a thermoformed tray to a flexible pouch for a urine collection assembly used in hospitals and achieved a waste volume reduction of about 50%. Medchem changed hemostat packaging from a glass jar inside a foil-lined container to a plastic tray in a pouch and achieved an 80% reduction in packaging by weight [13]. 

The National Toxicology Program asserts that phthalate plasticizers [diethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP), used in vinyl] are a health hazard and should be phased out of medical products. The major use of DEHP is in the production of PVC and vinyl chloride resins, in which it is added to plastics to make them flexible. 

Because textile materials are lightweight, flexible and strong polymers and biological tissues are themselves fibrous polymers, with very similar dimensional, physical and mechanical properties, they have found numerous applications as bioimplants. From their use as sutures and ligatures many thousands of years ago, to hernia repair meshes and vascular grafts in the present century, textiles continue to be explored for use in newer and better performing medical products. The currently available implants can be categorized as one-, two- or three-dimensional structures. 

Researchers in Germany claim that a titanimn-based surface coating can cut plasticiser migration from flexible PVC products. The University of Erlangen has co-operated with GfE Medizintechnik to develop an inert, biocompatible 30 nm titanium based system called MigraStop to prevent phthalate migration in medical equipment. 

The application fields of plasticisers range from automobiles and construction to toys and medical products. Phthalate plasticisers such as dibutyl phthalate and di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate are widely used due to the higher plasticising efficiency and lower volatility of these phthalate plasticisers. Phthalate plasticisers are still widely used in the processing of flexible PVC [29]. However, recently, the use of phthalate plasticisers has been questioned due to their debatable toxicity in consumer products made of PVC matrices, especially in blood supply and similar medical plastics, because the content of... 

A formulation for clear, flexible PVC compounds for medical products by Teknor Apex Plastics, Rhode Island, USA, allows processors to run at higher output, with less downtime because of the need to change the filter screen packs on the extruder. The key feature of the new system is that, unlike conventional FDA-approved stabilizers for medical applications, increasing the addition level does not reduce the resistance of the compound to sterilization by gamma rays. Resin degradation is also reduced (at 180°C, the time to onset of degradation is... 

Compounds dissipate a surface charge and can be processed by normal thermoplastic methods. Typical applications are boxes and in-plant handling containers for electronic components or chemicals where there is a risk of explosion from a spark. Medical products also increasingly have ESD specification, especially for use in an operating theatre. Packaging products such as flexible films also require some form of anti-static treatment, either by means of an additive, or by using external field generators. 

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