• Švorčík, Václav
• Kvítek, Ondřej
• Kolská, Zdeňka
• Sajdl, Petr
• Kasálková, Nikola Slepičková
• Nguyenová, Hoang Yen
• Řezníčková, Alena
• Lacmanová, Veronika

Abstract

Polymeric biomaterials play an important role in medicine as catheters, stents, vascular grafts, or artificial heart valves. For example, PTFE has superb thermal stability, low dielectric constant, dissipation factor, excellent chemical inertness and exceptionally low frictional coefficient. However, its applicability is hampered in many cases due to its poor wettability and adhesion to other materials. In our study, we present simple technique of altering surface properties of PTFE by plasma treatment at increased temperature (from 37 °C – body temperature to 121 °C – temperature of sterilization). We have studied the effect of the modification process parameters on surface properties and biological response of the material. For biological tests we have selected vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC) as a model line for application of our samples for applications where rapid cell growth is undesirable, such as artificial heart valves. The results have shown that proliferation of VSMC on plasma treated PTFE for 480 s at 121 °C is significantly lower compared to standard of tissue culture polystyrene (TCPS). Based on this result the risk of negative response of biological system such as inflammation, immune reactions and coalescence of VSMC in heart valve is minimized. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd

Topics

• impedance spectroscopy
• surface
• dielectric constant
• biomaterials
• dissipation factor