Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) is a synthetic polymer derived from polyvinyl acetate through partial or full hydroxylation. PVA is commonly used in medical devices due to its low protein adsorption characteristics, biocompatibility, high water solubility, and chemical resistance. Some of the most common medical uses of PVA are in soft contact lenses, eye drops, embolization particles, tissue adhesion ...

INTRODUCTION Poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) is a highly hydrophilic, nontoxic and biocompatible semicrystalline polymer with excellent properties such as strength, water solubility, gas permeability and thermal characteristics. PVA is available in a variety of degrees of hydrolysis (DH) because it is derived from the hydrolysis (or alcoholysis) of poly(vinyl acetate) (PVAc).1–3 The properties of PVA...

BACKGROUND Ischemic mitral regurgitation (MR) relates to displacement of the papillary muscles from ischemic ventricular distortion. We tested the hypothesis that repositioning of the papillary muscles can be achieved by injection of polyvinyl-alcohol (PVA) polymer, a biologically inert biomaterial that has been specially formulated to produce an encapsulated, stable, resilient gel once injecte...

Bacterial cellulose (BC) grown from a culture medium in the presence of water-soluble poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) produced an assemblage that was used as precursor for the synthesis of biocompatible nanocomposites. Physical crosslinking via cyclic freezing and thawing of the formed hydrogel facilitated retention of PVA matrix upon composite separation and purification. The composites displayed a ...

A novel development on halloysite-polyvinyl alcohol (HNTs-PVA) nanocomposites has been conducted using malonic acid (MA) by crosslinking PVA and HNTs. PVA-MA crosslinking produces smooth surfaces, which play an important role in enhancing the properties of HNTs-PVA nanocomposite. The crystallographic structures of crosslinked HNTs-PVA show almost no change as depicted by the X-ray diffraction (...

PURPOSE To evaluate the in vivo and in vitro properties of collagen-coated acrylic microspheres and to compare them with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) particles. METHODS Samples of 100- to 300-microns, 300- to 500-microns, 500- to 700-microns, and 700- to 900-microns collagen-coated acrylic microspheres and 200- to 300-microns PVA particles were suspended in solutions of 50% saline and 50% contrast...

BACKGROUND Left ventricular mechanical efficiency is one of the most important measures of left ventricular pump performance. Several clinical studies, however, have shown that mechanical efficiency does not fall substantially as the heart fails. To clarify the insensitivity of mechanical efficiency to the change in pump performance, we analyzed human left ventricular mechanical efficiency, app...

To establish whether pressure-volume areas (PVAs) calculated using the maximum time-varying elastance (Emax) have a relation with myocardial oxygen consumption (MVO2) that improves on other indexes of myocardial oxygen demand, we studied nine dogs of either sex weighing 19-39 kg, which were instrumented with a micromanometer left ventricular (LV) catheter and a Wilton-Webster coronary sinus flo...

The aim of this review was to analyze/investigate the synthesis, properties, and applications of polyvinyl alcohol-halloysite nanotubes (PVA-HNT), and their nanocomposites. Different polymers with versatile properties are attractive because of their introduction and potential uses in many fields. Synthetic polymers, such as PVA, natural polymers like alginate, starch, chitosan, or any material ...

Wound dressing is an artificial skin that can meet the requirements such as higher vapor or gas permeation and protection of wound from infection and dehydration. Poly (vinyl alcohol) (PVA) hydrogel is one of the well-known polymer gel that due to its good biocompatibility, hydrophilicity and capability of swell in water or biological fluids has been used in several biomedical and pharmaceutica...