Is there a case for haemorheological screening in the haemocompatibility testing of materials?

Bio-interactions between a material and blood govern the compatibility of the material with the human body and, therefore, the single most important requirement for the blood interfacing implants/devices is haemocompatibility. The decisive events which control haemocompatibility occur at the molecular level and affect the various subphases of blood rheology. This effect on the already complex human blood rheology can be used to our advantage in the screening of blood-contacting materials. An attempt has been made in the present work to evaluate the haemocompatibility of materials based on changes in microrheological parameters of human blood. Samples of materials of equal surface area known to be haemocompatible (medical grade silicon, polyvinyl chloride from blood bags) and materials known to be extremely haemo-incompatible (pyrex glass, copper, cotton fabric, all commercial grade) were incubated at 37.4 degrees C in freshly drawn anticoagulated whole human blood, and changes in the haemorheological parameters (whole blood, plasma viscosity, intrinsic viscosity of red cells, platelet aggregation, albumin fibrinogen ratio) have been evaluated. The results of the study show that alterations in the haemorheological parameters are reliable indicators to the compatibility/incompatibility characteristics of well-known substances and that there is a case for haemorheological screening of biomaterials in the overall framework of haemocompatibility tests.