How to improve the hydrophilicity of medical catheters
2025-02-24
Currently, most medical catheters in China are made of hydrophobic materials, such as polyvinyl chloride and silicone rubber. While these materials offer convenience in clinical diagnosis and procedures, they also present several challenges.
Due to their hydrophobic nature, these materials generate significant frictional resistance during use, potentially causing damage to blood vessels and tissues in the lumen, leading to inflammation and patient discomfort.
For example, to improve the lubricity of urinary catheters, which are widely used in clinical settings, lubricants such as paraffin oil or silicone oil are often applied to the catheter surface. However, this method is not entirely effective in enhancing lubricity, and the lubricating effect is not sustainable, making operation challenging. Surface modification can allow the material to maintain its original physical and mechanical properties while exhibiting the necessary surface properties, such as lubricity.
Therefore, the lubricating modification of medical catheter surfaces has become a research hotspot in recent years.
Highly hydrophilic or hydrophobic polymeric materials exhibit good lubricity in body fluids or tissue fluids. However, in clinical applications, highly hydrophilic polymeric materials are typically preferred, because their lubricity is superior to that of highly hydrophobic materials when in contact with body fluids or tissue fluids. Moreover, they significantly reduce the adsorption of cells and proteins on the surface.
Therefore, surface hydrophilic modification of medical polymeric materials has become the primary method for lubrication modification.
Currently, both domestic and international research focuses heavily on the biocompatibility and lubricity of medical catheters, with extensive studies conducted in this area.
Based on the bonding method between the coating and the material surface during modification, the methods can be classified into physical modification, chemical modification, plasma modification, and photografting modification.
Plasma treatment technology is currently widely used to improve the hydrophilicity of medical material surfaces, but the hydrophilicity decreases after a period of time.
While chemical grafting of hydrophilic groups improves the hydrophilicity of the medical material surface, the process is complex and costly, posing challenges for industrial production. In recent years, a physical method of coating polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) solution onto the surface of the catheter to form a hydrophilic coating has been widely used and has shown good results.
Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) is a common water-soluble polymer. Long-term clinical trials have shown that it is non-toxic, does not participate in human metabolism (physiologically inert), and has good biocompatibility.
When in contact with aqueous liquids, its inherent hydrophilic groups rapidly combine with water and swell to form a hydrophilic gel, exhibiting excellent lubricity and biocompatibility.
Taking advantage of this characteristic, applying a PVP solution to the hydrophobic surface of a medical catheter increases the surface hydrophilicity and lubricity. Upon contact with water, a lubricating film rapidly forms on the surface and is not easily removed. This provides superlubricity during clinical catheterization. Experiments have shown that its lubricity is 10 to 100 times that of ordinary catheter products.
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