Textiles for healthcare and medical applications

The market potential for healthcare and medical textile devices is increasing considerably. In the European Union alone, sales of medical textiles are worth US 7 billion and already account for 10% of the market in technical textiles. The EU sector consumes 

000 tonnes of fibre per annum and is growing in volume by a year. The global medical device market was valued at over US 100 billion, of which US 43 billion was generated from the US market. Western Europe is the second largest market and accounts for nearly 25% of the global medical device industry. 

The UK has one of the largest medical device markets in the world. The market is dominated by the National Health Service (NHS), which accounts for approximately 80% of the healthcare expenditure, even though there are fewer private sectors. 

There is a very high market potential for advanced wound dressings. The wound care industry generated between US 3.5 and 4.5 billion in 2003-6, mostly from the US and Europe. The global advanced wound care market is the fastest growing area and it is estimated that it will be worth US 16.3 billion in 2018.  

Fibres used in medicine and surgery may be classified depending on whether the materials from which they are made are natural or synthetic, biodegradable or non-biodegradable. All fibres used in medical applications must be non-toxic, non-allergenic, non-carcinogenic, and able to be sterilised without changing their physical or chemical characteristics. 

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Rajendran, S., Anand, S.C., 2001. In Development of a Versatile Antimicrobial Finish for Textile Materials for Healthcare and Hygine Applications, Proceedings, Medical Textiles 99 Conference, 24—25 August, Bolton, UK. Woodhead Publishing Ltd, Cambridge... 

Rajendran S, Anand SC. Development of a versatile antimicrobial finish for textile materials for healthcare and hygiene applications. In Medical textiles proceedings of the international conference 24—25 August 1999. 

Black, S., 2007. Trends in smart medical textiles. In Smart Textiles for Medicine and Healthcare—Materials, Systems and Application. Woodhead Publishing Ltd, Cambridge, pp. 3-26. Available at http //www.woodheadpublishing.com/erFbook.aspx bookID=888. 

Textile materials are used in a wide variety of applications in healthcare and medicine which include implantable materials for in vivo applications. Vascular grafts, artificial ligaments, artificial blood vessels and mesh gra are typical implantable medical devices. High-tech advances in tissue engineering have enabled researchers to cultivate implantable hiunan organs to the required shape by growing living cells on textile sc olds. 

Medical textiles embrace all those textile materials used for medical devices in health and hygiene plications in both the consumer and medical markets, thus comprising a group of products with considerable variations in terms of product performance and unit value. Categories of medical textiles include non-implantable materials, implantable materials, healthcare and hygiene products, and extracorporeal devices. The application of different fibres for fabricating medical textiles for medical devices is illustrated in Tables 1-3, which focus on non-implantables, implantables, and healthcare/hygiene, respectively. 

In First World Conference on 3D Fabrics and Their Applications. Texeng Ltd., Manchester. Anand, S.C., Rajendran, S., 2006. Effect of fibre type and structure in designing orthopaedic wadding for the treatment of venous leg ulcers. In Anand, S.C., Kennedy, J.F., Miraftab, M., Rajendran, S. (Eds.), Medical Textiles and Biomaterials for Healthcare. Woodhead Publishing, Cambridge. 

Joshi, M., Purwar, R., Wazed Ali, S. (2010). Antimicrobial textiles for health hygiene applications based on eco-friendly natural products. In S. C. Anand, J. F. Kennedy, M. Miraftab, S. Rajendran (Eds.), Medical and healthcare textiles (pp. 84—92). Cambridge Woodhead Publishing Limited. 

Rigby, A.J., Anand, S.C., and Horrocks, A.R. 1997. Textile materials for medical and healthcare applications. Journal of the Textile Institute, 88(Part3) 83-93. 

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