Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is a ubiquitous material used in implants and medical devices general due to its high biocompatibility inertness; blood vessels, heart, jawbone, nose, eyes, or abdominal wall can benefit from properties the case of disease injury. Its expanded version, ePTFE, an improved version PTFE with better mechanical properties, which extend applications. However, ePTFE ofte...

Poor patency of arteriovenous ePTFE grafts remains a major clinical problem. Prophylactic balloon angioplasty of stenoses has been claimed to prolong graft patency and has been widely introduced into practice. In this manuscript we report the cost incurred in application of such a program involving graft surveillance and prophylactic angioplasty of ePTFE graft stenoses >50% diameter. All patien...

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the ability of the expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (ePTFE) cervical sling to improve results of surgery on the aging neck in the short term as well as its ability to achieve long-term cosmesis through its secondary adjustability. DESIGN A retrospective analysis. SETTING A private facial plastic surgery practice. Patients The first 100 consecutive patients who underwe...

rosthetic arterial grafts constructed from expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (ePTFE) have been used for many years as an alternative to autologous vein grafts for lower extremity bypass. When anastomosed above the knee, their performance is similar to that of autologous vein for up to 2 years after operation, thereafter they are associated with a significantly higher failure rate.1 When anastomo...

BACKGROUND Expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (ePTFE) and silicone are safe and relatively biocompatible materials. OBJECTIVE To compare, using multiple histologic parameters, the tissue response to a standard silicone soft tissue implant with the response to a modified ePTFE implant. The modified form of ePTFE is reinforced with fluorinated ethylene propylene (FEPRePTFE), which provides increa...

Objective: To evaluate in vivo patency rates of silk fibroin (SF) vascular grafts and resulting histological reactions in a canine model. Methods: To generate 3.5-mm inner diameter vessels, a combination of plaited silk fibers were wound with cocoon filaments and subsequently coated with an SF solution. The resulting SF grafts (n=35) were implanted into the carotid arteries of male beagles (age...

Intravascular mechanical support has been proposed as a solution to the frequent occurrence of vascular narrowing and occlusion after transluminal balloon angioplasty or surgical endarterectomy. Although several endovascular stents are currently in clinical use for angioplasty of larger vessels, acute thrombosis is a troublesome complication of their use with coronary angioplasty. To study thro...

We addressed the effect of implant thickness, implant porosity, and polyurethane (PU) chemistry on angiogenesis and on the foreign body response in rats. The following materials were implanted subcutaneously for 7 weeks then excised for histologic analysis: a solid PU; a solid polyurethane with silicone and polyethylene oxide (PU-S-PEO); porous expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (ePTFE); and poro...

BACKGROUND Long-term patency of conventional synthetic grafts is unsatisfactory below a 6-mm internal diameter. Poly(epsilon-caprolactone) (PCL) is a promising biodegradable polymer with a longer degradation time. We aimed to evaluate in vivo healing and degradation characteristics of small-diameter vascular grafts made of PCL nanofibers compared with expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (ePTFE) gr...

In a previous study in dogs, the early removal of expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (ePTFE) membrane (2 weeks after placement) showed histomorphometric results (of new bone, cementum and periodontal ligament) similar to that obtained with membrane removal at 4 weeks after placement. This study evaluated the influence of early removal of an ePTFE membrane on the treatment of Class II furcation de...