TAPE: A Medical Adhesive Inspired by a Ubiquitous Compound in Plants
Highlights
- Commercially available medical adhesives can be divided into three classes: (1) polymer-based medical glues using chitosan, gelatin, alginate, and poly(ethylene glycol)s (PEGs),1-4 (2) cyanoacrylate derivatives,5 and (3) fibrinogen and thrombin containing fibrin glues (View Highlight)
- Most of polymer-based glues are biocompatible, but some of their degradation products cause irritation on the skin or inflammatory responses on the tissues. Also, poor mechanical and adhesion properties are another problem of this class, which is mostly arising from their poor solubility in water (View Highlight)
- Cyanoacrylate glues can strongly adhere to tissues but have limitations that arise from the inflammation caused by its toxic degradation by-products, cyanoacetate and formaldehyde (View Highlight)
- Fibrin glues are more biocompatible then cyanoacrylate glue, but they weakly bind to tissues and entail a risk of infectious transmission from the human blood plasma donor (View Highlight)