Blood-Compatible Polymers

Abstract

Highly guaranteed blood-compatible polymers are essentially fundamentals to advanced cardiovascular prostheses with blood-contacting circuits, which development has been increasingly demanded. In this article, mechanistic aspects of acquiring antithrombogenicity are firstly summarized. Well-accepted hypothetical mechanisms are divided into two major categories in principle; one is “never-passivative or non-adherent” mechanism which is materialized by the formation of highly hydrated diffuse layer at a blood/material interface, and the other is “passivative” mechanism which could be achieved by a so-called “surface multiphasic or morphological” effect. The former one is formulated with physicochemical approaches based on colloid and interface science, whereas the latter one needs biospecific control of complex nature of both biochemical and biological responses. Based on these working hypotheses or leading principles, recent trends of molecular design for antithrombogenic polymer surfaces are reviewed. © 1984, The Society of Synthetic Organic Chemistry, Japan. All rights reserved.