Medical textiles also known as Healthcare Textiles. Medical Textiles is one of the most rapidly expanding sectors in the technical textile market.It is one of the major growth areas within technical textiles and the use of textile materials for medical and healthcare products ranges from simple gauze or bandage materials to scaffolds for tissue culturing and a large variety of prostheses for permanent body implants. Textile products are omnipresent in the field of human hygiene and medical practice. Their use is based on a number of typical basic textile properties like softness and lightness, flexibility, absorption, filtering etc.
The use of textile materials for medical and healthcare products can be classified into following main areas
Barrier material (for infection control)
Bandaging & pressure garment
Wound care material
Hygiene material
Implantable material (sutures, art. Joints etc)
Extra Corporal devices (like art. Kidney etc)
Requirements of textile material for medical applications
Biocompatible
Good resistance to alkalis, acids and micro-organisms
Good dimensional stability
Elasticity Free from contamination or impurities
Absorption / Repellency
Air permeability
Medical Textile Products
Hollow polyester fiber, hollow viscose
Application: Artificial kidney
Function: Remove waste products from patient s blood
Hollow viscose
Application: Artificial liver
Function: Separate and dispose of patients' plasma and supply fresh plasma
Hollow polypropylene fiber, hollow silicone membrane
Application: Mechanical lung
Function: Remove carbon dioxide from patients' blood and supply fresh oxygen
