Endovascular embolization is a medical procedure to treat abnormal blood vessels in the brain and other parts of the body. It is an alternative to open surgery.
This procedure cuts off the blood supply to a certain part of the body.
Particles of PVA (poly vinyl alcohol) are injected slowly with X-ray guidance to prohibit the supply of nutrition to some kind of cell, such as- a cancer cell , tumour, fibroid etc.
The iodinated PVA fibrils can be used as an embolic fiber for biomedical applications, owing to their-
high fineness,
good biocompatibility, and
good binding property.
Disadvantage of conventional metallic coil-shaped embolic materials-
Expensive
Problems during operation because of the sharpness of their cut faces
Advantages of PVA microfibril-
More effective
Comparatively superior properties
Less expensive
enhanced biocompatibility
less risk of scratching
Radiopacity is a very important characteristic for embolic materials for the minute positioning control of materials in human organs.
It is necessary to endow radiopacity to PVA fibrils by iodination to be used as embolic material.
