Garth Hastings – författare

Progress in the development of surgical implant materials has been hindered by the lack of basic information available on the nature of the tissues, organs, and systems being repaired or replaced. However a great body of data has accumulated concerning the materials aspect of both implantable materials and natural tissues and fluids, broadly distributed in various publications, with varying degrees of accuracy and precision. This handbook draws together all the accepted data and information on the subject. Direction is given to the experts responsible for each contribution in this handbook to consider not merely the intrinsic and interactive properties of biomaterials, but also their appropriate (and in some cases not appropriate) applications as well as their historical context. The resulting text should prove useful to the researcher, student, bioengineer and practising physician.

Progress in the development of surgical implant materials has been hindered by the lack of basic information on the nature of the tissues, organs and systems being repaired or replaced. Materials' properties of living systems, whose study has been conducted largely under the rubric of tissue mechanics, has tended to be more descriptive than quantitative. In the early days of the modern surgical implant era, this deficiency was not critical. However, as implants continue to improve and both longer service life and higher reliability are sought, the inability to predict the behavior of implanted manufactured materials has revealed the relative lack of knowledge of the materials properties of the supporting or host system, either in health or disease. Such a situation is unacceptable in more conventional engineering practice: the success of new designs for aeronautical and marine applications depends exquisitely upon a detailed, disciplined and quantitative knowledge of service environments, including the properties of materials which will be encountered and interacted with. Thus the knowledge of the myriad physical properties of ocean ice makes possible the design and development of icebreakers without the need for trial and error. In contrast, the development period for a new surgical implant, incorporating new materials, may well exceed a decade and even then only short term performance predictions can be made.

This book provides tabular and text data relating to normal and diseased tissue materials and materials used in medical devices.