NATURAL FIBERS AS SUSTAINABLE BIOMATERIALS FOR SUTURE AND CATHETER APPLICATIONS

Abstract

As the need to create safe, biocompatible, and environmentally friendly biomedical materials increases; so too does the interest in using natural fibers for both sutures and catheters. Natural fibers obtained from animals, plants, microbes, and marine life provide unique benefits such as being renewable, biodegradable, biocompatible, having advantageous mechanical properties, and providing opportunities for biological functionalization. In this review, we examine the use of natural fibers as sustainable biomaterials in the creation of sutures and catheters. We focus on how these fibers are sourced, their chemical and physical-chemical attributes, their mechanical performance, their rate of biodegradation, and their biological attributes. We discuss some of the most common types of natural fibers used in biomedicine (collagen, silk fibroin, chitosan, alginate, cellulose, bacterial cellulose, cotton, flax, and hemp) and how they could potentially be utilized in sutures and catheters. We also look at different ways that natural fibers can be modified or functionalized to overcome some of their limitations. Modifications include cross-linking, blending with other polymers, coating them with other substances, electrospinning them, incorporating nanoparticles into them, and making composites out of them. Additionally, we describe the manufacturing and processing methods used to produce natural fiber-based biomaterials; how they can be sterilized; and what some of the challenges associated with producing consistent batches of natural fiber based biomaterials are. Finally, we highlight several areas where there have been recent developments in smart materials, antimicrobial systems, drug eluting devices, and composite materials made of natural fibers and synthetic polymers. These developments illustrate the potential for creating multifunctional biomedical products with the help of natural fibers. Ultimately, natural fibers have the potential to serve as sustainable bases upon which researchers will continue to develop new suture and catheter technology with greater functionality, biocompatibility, and environmental friendliness.