Using of plasma on modification of medical products

Artificial blood vessels are widely produced biomedical materials in biomedical technology field. Polymer materials are widely used in the production of artificial blood vessels. Although they have favorable properties such as production ease, light weight, chemical stability and convenient mechanical properties, biocompatibility problems arise during the application and afterwards. Therefore polyester artificial blood vessels need to be coated in order to prevent coagulation, biocompatibility problems, permeability problems, and other biological reactions. In this thesis low pressure plasma system is used to chemically modify the surface of polyester artificial blood vessels based on the principle of plasma surface polymerization technique to enhance the cell attachment and proliferation. To improve the biocompatibility by chemical modification nitrogen-containing groups were preferred. For this purpose amine compounds (octylamine, ethanolamine), nitrogen and oxygen gas was used. Duration of the plasma process and the power applied were taken as the variable parameters and their effect on surface properties of artificial blood vessels were investigated. In order to characterize the surface of the artificial blood vessels and to understand the plasma treatment effects, various hydrophilicity tests, FTIR-ATR, and XPS analysis were performed. And also for biocompatibility studies 3T3 cell culture test was carried out. The cell viability, proliferation, and cytotoxic effects of the plasma treated artificial blood vessel investigated with MTT test. Cell attachment analyzed by using SEM images.