Bio-tribology of vascular devices : a review of tissue/device friction research

Vascular medical devices, such as stents, catheters and more advanced devices inevitably interact with surfaces within the human body. These interactions and the underlying biological and tribological (friction) mechanisms and resulting implications are not well understood, currently. For the further optimisation of these devices and the development of new and safer devices, a deeper understanding of vascular biotribology is required. Studies about this topic are scarce and no review is available. This review paper introduces vascular physiology relevant to interaction with medical devices and highlights where tribological effects may come into play. Furthermore, implications with existing medical devices are investigated in the context of biotribology and relevant studies are discussed. The different approaches to study the interactions are compared, and the current state of the field is reviewed. The aim of this paper is to provide an introduction to this interdisciplinary field, for both researchers with an engineering background and those with a biological background, and to present the current state of the field of research.