Shastri V Prasad
School of Medicine and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Curr Pharm Biotechnol. 2003 Oct;4(5):331-7. doi: 10.2174/1389201033489694.
Polymers have a long history in medicine. Their uses to date range from traditional applications such as catheters, syringes, blood contacting extra corporeal devices to matrices for drug delivery, cell encapsulation and tissue regeneration. Polymers can be broadly classified on the basis of the reactivity of their chemical backbone (or susceptibility of the backbone to breakdown upon exposure to water, i.e., hydrolysis) as non-degradable and degradable. In this review, the polymers that exhibit no to very low degradation in aqueous and biological environments will be covered. The applications of various polymers both in traditional and emerging medical areas is discussed in the context of its chemical structure to better enable material selection for biomedical research.
聚合物在医学领域有着悠久的历史。迄今为止，它们的用途涵盖了从传统应用，如导管、注射器、与血液接触的体外装置，到药物递送、细胞封装和组织再生的基质等。根据其化学主链的反应性（或主链在接触水时分解的敏感性，即水解），聚合物可大致分为不可降解和可降解两类。在本综述中，将涵盖在水性和生物环境中表现出无降解或极低降解的聚合物。在其化学结构的背景下讨论了各种聚合物在传统和新兴医学领域的应用，以便更好地为生物医学研究进行材料选择。
