Development of new textile technology for manufacturing hybrid textile vascular grafts

In the fields of medicine and bioengineering extensive efforts have been directed to the development of various new types of vascular grafts using different technologies. The textile industry has a lot of practical experience in the production of different kinds of vascular grafts and allows a high production rate to be reached. Nevertheless there are practical needs for compliant grafts for patients with cardiovascular disease. Clinical implantation and chronic experiments on animals with various grafts have indicated a fairly good correlation between their compliance and patency (especially for a diameter less than 6mm) because the compliance vascular graft practically does not change the haemodynamics of the blood flow. Thus compliant vascular grafts having mechanical properties matching the human arteries are very promising for successful reconstruction operation and good patency. This problem of developing new textile technology and producing compliant vascular grafts is very important for Latvia because cardiovascular disease is very high - and not only in the Baltic states. The investigation of the peculiarities of the mechanical behaviour and structure of human blood vessels is carried out at RTU. On this basis the new structure of the hybrid textile materials is developed. Using the system of two threads having substantially different modulus of elasticity, it is possible to model peculiarities of the biomechanical behaviour of the arterial tissue.