Hemocompatibility of styrenic block copolymers for use in prosthetic heart valves

Hemocompatibility of styrenic block copolymers for use in prosthetic heart valves

Certain styrenic thermoplastic block copolymer elastomers can be processed to exhibit anisotropic mechanical properties which may be desirable for imitating biological tissues. The ex-vivo hemocompatibility of four triblock (hard-soft-hard) copolymers with polystyrene hard blocks and polyethylene, polypropylene, polyisoprene, polybutadiene or polyisobutylene soft blocks are tested using the mod...

stress echocardiography in prosthetic heart valves

Prosthetic Aortic Heart Valves

In this review, the anatomy and structure of the aortic valve and its prostheses are comprehensively discussed. Cardiac anatomy and function, human heart valves and their prostheses are also extensively discussed. The current status of prosthetic heart valves along with the next generation of these devices is broadly deliberated. Ather promising options such astranscatheter technologies (percut...

Prosthetic heart valves.

The first prosthetic valve was implanted by Hufnagel in 1952 in a patient with aortic insufficiency. Since then, prosthetic valves have evolved into various mechanical and bioprosthetic shapes and sizes. Despite the excitement surrounding the current development of prosthetic heart valves, surgically implanted valves remain the mainstay of current practice, and this article discusses the hemody...

The use of styrenic copolymers to generate polyimide nanofoams

New routes for the synthesis of high Tg thermally stable polymer foams with pore sizes in the nanometre regime have been developed. Foams were prepared by casting well-defined microphase-separated block copolymers comprising a thermally stable block and a thermally labile material. At properly designed volume fractions, the morphology provides a matrix of the thermally stable material with the ...