Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Polyethylene terephthalate is a kind of polyester materials with excellent mechanical properties and chemical inertia, but the surface must be modified and their blood compatibility should be improved because of poor blood compatibility of polymeric materials.
OBJECTIVE: Based on clotting mechanism, this study introduced surface grafting modification method of polyethylene terephthalate and the blood compatibility after the modification.
METHODS: A computer-based online search of PubMed, SDOS and CNKI database from 1990 to 2009 was performed for articles about the mechanism of blood coagulation, type of anticoagulant drugs and their effects on blood coagulation, as well as the polyethylene terephthalate properties, surface grafting method and blood compatibility evaluation.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The molecules grafted on the surface just modify a sort of specific properties of materials, which is the limitation of the current approaches of surface grafting polymerization of polyethylene terephthalate. Yet the environment where biomaterials exist in vivo is extremely complex, it is hard to fundamentally improve the blood compatibility of materials through modifying specific properties of materials solely. Then, through inducing the vascular endothelial cell that has physiological activity to adhere and grow by grafting specific molecules from the point of view of bionics, a novel surface which is similar to the model of natural vessel wall can be constructed that will must become the next major direction of promoting the blood compatibility of biomaterials.