Polymeric biomaterials overview

Chu, C.-C. Biodegradable polymeric biomaterials An updated overview. In (Bronzino, J. D., ed.J, The Biomedical Engineering Handbook Second Edition, 2000. 

C.C. Chu, Biodegradable polymeric biomaterials an updated overview, in Biomedical Engineering Handbook, 2nd edn., ed. by J.D. Bronzino (CRC Press, Boca Raton, 2000),... 

This chapter provides a brief overview of some of the recent developments in the field of polymeric biomaterials with a particular emphasis on the articles included in this book (2-22). The research being done in this field is diverse and takes on several directions due to its multi disciplinary nature. It helps to organize these developments broadly into three sections (a) Synthetic approaches to polymer based biomaterials (b) characterization related development and (c) polymeric surfaces and (d) other biomedical applications of polymers. 

This chapter provides a brief overview of several medical applications that polymers have made seminal contributions to over the years. Many of the polymers discussed here are initially developed as plastics, elastomers, and fibers for nonmedical industrial applications. They were borrowed by the smgeons post-World War II to address medical problems. Since then, they have led to the development of biomedical-specific materials. Currently, with the rapid growth in modem biology and the collaborative effort, cross-disciplines such as materials science, engineering, chemistry, biology, and medicine, polymeric biomaterials are now being fashioned into bioactive, biomimetic, and most importantly, with excellent biocompatibility. Examples of this newer generation of polymeric biomaterials are also included in this chapter. 

This contribution will provide a review of polylectrolytes as biomaterials, with emphasis on recent developments. The first section will provide an overview of methods of synthesizing polyelectrolytes in the structures that are most commonly employed for biomedical applications linear polymers, crosslinked networks, and polymer grafts. In the remaining sections, the salient features of polyelectrolyte thermodynamics and the applications of polyelectrolytes for dental adhesives and restoratives, controlled release devices, polymeric drugs, prodrugs, or adjuvants, and biocompatibilizers will be discussed. These topics have been reviewed in the past, therefore previous reviews are cited and only the recent developments are considered here. 

The sections that follow provide a schematic overview of the polymeric materials most used in drug delivery systems. For more details, readers are referred to other recent books for aspects of biomaterials that are not covered in detail here. For example, biocompatibility and interactions with implanted polymers are reviewed in several edited volumes [2, 13, 14]. 

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