Suppliers and Manufacturers of Additives for Polyolefins

If the vitamin E movement in UHMWPE biomaterials was bom in Torino in 2003, then its conception occurred in Japan by Professor Naohide Tomita from the University of Kyoto. Japan has a history of early adoption of vitamin E both in packaging as well as in orthopedic implants. Vitamin E has been used in Japan as an environmentally friendly additive for polyolefins since the late 1980s [11]. In light of its acceptance as an effective antioxidant, a manufacturer from Japan (Nakashima Medical Co., Ltd., http //www.medical.nakashima.co.jp) was also the first supplier to produce UHMWPE blended with vitamin E for total knee replacements, and these implants have been in clinical use in Japan since 2006 [18] (Figure 16.4). The commercialization of vitamin-E-blended UHMWPE in Japan is largely based on the research efforts of Professor Tomita and Nobuyuki Shibata, who was a doctoral student at the time [1,19-21]. These studies have been recently summarized [18] consequently the contributions of the Kyoto research group are only briefly reviewed herein. 

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