Biocompatibility is the most critical factor that controls the success of biomaterials and those health care products that incorporate biomaterials. It is concerned with the mechanisms of interaction between biomaterials and the human body, and the consequences of these interactions. This chapter first introduces the concept of biocompatibility and then provides you with a series of scenarios that cover the whole range of situations in which biomaterials come into contact with tissues. In each case, critical mechanisms are explained and discussed, leading to the presentation of a unified framework of the sequence of events that constitute biocompatibility. This is based on the simple concept that in biocompatibility there are causative events within the biomaterial–host interactions that lead, through a variety of different but interconnected pathways, to physiological or pathological effects and then to their clinical consequences. This framework is then used to explain a variety of situations in which biocompatibility has proved to be so important.

Introduction

We discuss here a wide variety of situations in which interactions take place between biomaterials and the patients in which they are placed, and where the nature of that interaction determines both the level of satisfaction and risk that the patient receives or perceives.