Medical textiles: It's present and prospects

Abstract

The textile industry is one of the oldest and the second largest employment generated sector in India and it covers a wide range of products from traditional textiles, household textile, woven, knitted, non-woven and technical textiles. Textile products that have wide use in different sectors like agriculture, healthcare, engineering, safety, etc. all are under the umbrella of technical textiles. It is one of the emerging and indispensable parts of the textile industry, in the field of medical, hygiene, and health care sector. Medical textile is a together effort of the textile and healthcare sector to protect and care for the human being and also protecting itself especially in the time of the global pandemic like Covid-19. The number of applications in medical fields is limitless and diverse, ranging from personal protection kit, a single thread suture to the complex composite structures from implantable structure to non-implantable ones. Besides these, finishing of textiles with natural materials can also enhance some properties of fabrics like antimicrobial, antibacterial, etc. that can hinder various infections. The main objective of this paper is to study the importance of medical textiles in the present scenario as well as in the future days. Introduction Industrialization, globalization, and modernization-all the steps had developed the world but along with these new diseases are also emerging in human life which required healthcare. Healthcare is the service provided by health professionals for the benefit of patients and is used for prevention, treatment, and management of illness, the prevention of mental, problems, and promotion of general well-being of man through the services offered by the medical and health specialist (Martin, 2010) [11]. With the medical textile market predicted to grow at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 4.23 percent during the period 2018-2022, the industry is positioning itself to meet this demand (Mahony, 2019) [15]. Besides disease, accidents major and minor, natural disasters are also causing a risk to mankind. To overcome these, new textile materials are required in medical fields. Medical Textiles is one of the needed sectors in the field of technical textiles market ranging from simple gauze or bandage materials to implants. The use of technical textiles in proper protection of the health worker is becoming a prime important during the pandemic as the virus is very different and can easily spread from the infect to the healthy person through different media. If proper protection is provided to the health care person, than only he can help the patients. For the combination of textile and medical science, textile technologist, and medical profession researched together to form medical textiles, this is a new field for both the medical and textile sector. As per todays' need, the new areas in the application of medical textiles are researching and new fiber along with improved technology for fiber, yarns, and fabrics are emerging. As per the basic requirement and the comfort ability level, the technical textiles are developed based on their end-use with the use of natural or manmade fibers, natural fiber is most favored. But today's world is more conscious about natural products which are ecofriendly and are less harmful and less bad harmful effects in the future.