Biomedical Applications
PCL is degraded by hydrolysis of its ester linkages in physiological conditions (such as in the human body) and has therefore received a great deal of attention for use as an implantable biomaterial. In particular it is especially interesting for the preparation of long term implantable devices, owing to its degradation which is even slower than that of polylactide.
PCL has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in specific applications used in the human body as (for example) a drug delivery device, suture (sold under the brand name Monocryl or generically), or adhesion barrier. It is being investigated as a scaffold for tissue repair via tissue engineering, GBR membrane. It has been used as the hydrophobic block of amphiphilic synthetic block copolymers used to form the vesicle membrane of polymersomes.
It is also used in housing applications.
A variety of drugs have been encapsulated within PCL beads for controlled release and targeted drug delivery which have been peer reviewed.
The major impurities in the medical grade are toluene (<890 ppm, usually about 100 ppm) and tin (<200 ppm).
In odontology or dentistry (as composite named Resilon), it is used as a component of "night guards" (dental splints) and in root canal filling. It performs like gutta-percha, has the same handling properties, and for retreatment purposes may be softened with heat, or dissolved with solvents like chloroform. Similar to gutta-percha, there are master cones in all ISO sizes and accessory cones in different sizes available. The major difference between the polycaprolactone-based root canal filling material (Resilon and Real Seal) and gutta-percha is that the PCL-based material is biodegradable but the gutta-percha is not. There is lack of consensus in the expert dental community as to whether a resorbable root canal filling material, such as Resilon or Real Seal is desirable.
Read more about this topic: Polycaprolactone