Shape Memory Polymer Foams for Biomedical Devices

Developed in last decade, the shape memory polymers (SMP) have been gaining widespread attention for new product innovation. They are lightweight, have a high strain/shape recovery ability, are easy to process, and required properties can be tailored for a variety of applications. Recently a number of medical applications have been considered and investigated for polyurethane-based SMP materials. Newly developed SMP foams, together with cold hibernated elastic memory (CHEM) processing, further broaden their potential biomedical applications. Polyurethane-based CHEM foams are described here and major advantages are identified over other medical materials. Recently, several important applications are being considered for CHEM foams as self-deployable vascular and coronary devices. One of these potential applications, the endovascular treatment of aneurysms, was experimentally investigated with encouraging results and is described in this paper as well.