Researchers create coating material to prevent blood clots associated with implanted devices

A team of researchers from UCLA and the University of Michigan has developed a material that could help prevent blood clots associated with catheters, heart valves, vascular grafts and other implanted biomedical devices.
Blood clots at or near implanted devices are thought to occur when the flow of nitric oxide, a naturally occurring clot-preventing agent generated in the blood vessels, is cut off. When this occurs, the devices can fail.
Some researchers have sought to solve this problem with implantable devices that gradually release nitric oxide, but their supply of the agent is necessarily limited. Instead, the UCLA