While the safety assessment (“biocompatibility”) of medical devices has been focused on issues of local tissue tolerance (irritation, sensitization, cytotoxicity) and selected quantal effects (genotoxicity and acute lethality) since first being regulated in the late 1950s, this has changed as devices assumed a much more important role in healthcare and became more complex in both composition and in their design and operation. Add to this that devices now frequently serve as delivery systems for drugs, and that drugs may be combined with devices to improve device performance, and the problems of ensuring patient safety with devices has become significantly more complex. A part of this, requirements for ensuring safety (once based on use of previously acceptable materials – largely polymers and metals) have come to requiring determining which chemical entities are potentially released from a device into patients (and how much is released). Then an appropriate and relevant (yet also conservative) risk assessment must be performed for each identified chemical structure. The challenges inherent in meeting the current requirements are multifold, and this text seeks to identify, understand, and solve all of them. • Identify and verify the most appropriate available data. • As in most cases such data is for a different route of exposure, transform it for use in assessing exposure by the route of interest. • As the duration (and rate) of exposure to moieties released from a device are most frequently different (longer) than what available data speaks to, transformation across tissue is required. • As innate and adaptive immune responses are a central part of device/patient interaction, assessing potential risks on this basis are required. • Incorporating assessments for special populations such as neonates. • Use of (Q)SAR (Quantitative Structure Activity Relationships) modeling in assessments. • Performance and presentation of integrative assessments covering all potential biologic risks. Appendices will contain summarized available biocompatibility data for commonly used device materials (polymers and metals) and safety assessments on the frequently seen moieties in extractions from devices.

Capturing the growth of the global medical device market in recent years, this practical new guide is essential for all who are responsible for ensuring safety in the use and manufacture of medical devices. It has been extensively updated to reflect significant advances, incorporating combination products and helpful case examples of current real-life problems in the field. The Third Edition explores these key current trends: global device markets continually advancing technology the increasing harmonization of device safety regulation worldwide Each aspect of safety evaluation is considered in terms of International Standards Organization (ISO), US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), European Union (EU), and Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare (MHW) perspectives. In addition, the book reflects the role of the continuing growth of technology in the incorporation of science, particularly in the areas of immunotoxicology and toxicokinetics.

Capturing the growth of the global medical device market in recent years, this practical new guide is essential for all who are responsible for ensuring safety in the use and manufacture of medical devices. It has been extensively updated to reflect significant advances, incorporating combination products and helpful case examples of current real-l

This User’s Guide is intended to support the design, implementation, analysis, interpretation, and quality evaluation of registries created to increase understanding of patient outcomes. For the purposes of this guide, a patient registry is an organized system that uses observational study methods to collect uniform data (clinical and other) to evaluate specified outcomes for a population defined by a particular disease, condition, or exposure, and that serves one or more predetermined scientific, clinical, or policy purposes. A registry database is a file (or files) derived from the registry. Although registries can serve many purposes, this guide focuses on registries created for one or more of the following purposes: to describe the natural history of disease, to determine clinical effectiveness or cost-effectiveness of health care products and services, to measure or monitor safety and harm, and/or to measure quality of care. Registries are classified according to how their populations are defined. For example, product registries include patients who have been exposed to biopharmaceutical products or medical devices. Health services registries consist of patients who have had a common procedure, clinical encounter, or hospitalization. Disease or condition registries are defined by patients having the same diagnosis, such as cystic fibrosis or heart failure. The User’s Guide was created by researchers affiliated with AHRQ’s Effective Health Care Program, particularly those who participated in AHRQ’s DEcIDE (Developing Evidence to Inform Decisions About Effectiveness) program. Chapters were subject to multiple internal and external independent reviews.

Biomaterials, Medical Devices, and Combination Products is a single-volume guide for those responsible for-or concerned with-developing and ensuring patient safety in the use and manufacture of medical devices.The book provides a clear presentation of the global regulatory requirements and challenges in evaluating the biocompatibility and clinical

Rare diseases collectively affect millions of Americans of all ages, but developing drugs and medical devices to prevent, diagnose, and treat these conditions is challenging. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommends implementing an integrated national strategy to promote rare diseases research and product development.

Advances in molecular biology and toxicology are paving the way for major improvements in the evaluation of the hazards posed by the large number of chemicals found at low levels in the environment. The National Research Council was asked by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to review the state of the science and create a far-reaching vision for the future of toxicity testing. The book finds that developing, improving, and validating new laboratory tools based on recent scientific advances could significantly improve our ability to understand the hazards and risks posed by chemicals. This new knowledge would lead to much more informed environmental regulations and dramatically reduce the need for animal testing because the new tests would be based on human cells and cell components. Substantial scientific efforts and resources will be required to leverage these new technologies to realize the vision, but the result will be a more efficient, informative and less costly system for assessing the hazards posed by industrial chemicals and pesticides.