CDRH Qualifies Tool on Material Biostability
CDRH is announcing the qualification of a new tool through the agency’s voluntary Medical Device Development Tools program: Accelerated Testing to Prove Long-Term Material Biostability. The new tool is described as a non-clinical assessment model intended to assess long-term hydrolytic biostability of thermoplastic polyurethane materials being considered for cardiac or neuromodulation lead insulation. CDRH says it is “designed for materials intended to be biostable and implanted for more than 10 years where the hydrolysis rate can be difficult to assess with pre-clinical testing.” It also provides “longevity expectations and a preconditioning method for testing performance over the entire intended service duration of the device,” it says.