MEDICAL TUBING | MATERIALS
Delegates at a recent AMI conference discovered how new materials and processing techniques are helping to improve the performance of medical tubing
Fluid transfer: advances in tubing and catheters
Medical tubing often goes unnoticed among the high-tech machinery in modern hospital wards. However, it plays a vital role in healthcare – from its presence in medical devices to its deployment in sophisticated catheter systems. At the Medical Tubing and Catheters conference
in April – organised by AMI and held in Dusseldorf, Germany – Abdallah Dababneh and Christian Heiner of Osypka presented a project to investigate defects in stent balloons caused by the extrusion process. Balloon valves are used to inflate diseased heart
valves. They are formed by extrusion, followed by a portion of the tube expanding into a mould to form the balloon. The challenge is to create cardiovascular balloons with high mechanical stability – with catheters that need to have as small a profile as possible. However, the bigger the balloon, the higher the surface tension will be. Materials typically used for cardiovascular
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balloons, such as such as Evonik Vestamid Care grades, are typically close to their mechanical limits – and small defects in the surface can lead to balloon bursting. In terms of quality, the balloon tubing should be
transparent and have no visible waves – or any inclusions or gels in the middle sector. Defects that affect balloon quality include inclusions (an unknown material melted in the tube’s wall) and gels (unmelted material) in the middle sector. When the surface area has waves, or the tube is yellowish, the balloon quality may meet the requirements – but it should ideally be transparent.
“Defects in the balloon surface are caused by two main sources,” said the presenters. “Impurities in the material; and defects caused in the manufacturing processes – including the extrusion, necking process and balloon forming.” One way of dealing with the problems was to enlist Evonik’s help – using cross-section
Summer 2025 | PIPE & PROFILE EXTRUSION 13
Main image: Tubing often goes unnoticed in modern medicine
IMAGE: SHUTTERSTOCK
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