Investigation of Blood Coagulation Process on Biopolymers and Review on the Hemocompatibility Evaluation Methods

The use of biopolymers in the development of biomedical devices has extended in recent years. These devices are including prosthetic heart valves catheter, cardiovascular stents, artificial arteries, peacemakers, hemodialysis membranes, etc. Hemocompatibility is taken into account as one of the essential cases of biopolymers for biomedical applications. Knowing biopolymer-blood interaction is very considerable for the development of a hemocompatible biopolymer. Various factors can undergo the hemocompatibility of biopolymers. Surface properties such as hydrophilicity, surface energy, and electrostatic charge are the most important factor for the control of hemocompatibility. In this study, further blood coagulation mechanism on the biopolymers, evaluation methods of hemocompatibility is investigated. Methods include protein adsorption which is the first phenomenon of the blood coagulation process, investigation of kallikrein activity which evaluates intrinsic coagulation pathway, assessment of coagulation times such as thrombin time (TT), prothrombin time (PT) and activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT) which monitor extrinsic, intrinsic and common pathway of blood coagulation, hemolysis of erythrocytes, microscopy analysis of cell adhesion, platelet adhesion and activation. Change in platelet morphology is one of the main criteria for the investigation of blood compatibility. Finally, a hemocompatible polymer should pass all mentioned blood compatibility analyses. Herein, besides i