Synthesis of bioresorbable polymers for medical applications

Biodegradable polymers are very attractive materials because of the possibility to degrade them back naturally to their monomeric forms, with clear advantages for many applications. Degradable polyesters are the most widely used group of synthetic biodegradable polymers for medical applications, with many of its members already Food and Drug Administration approved and used as suture materials, implants, and drug delivery vehicles. This class of polymers has the ability to control molecular weight, and this ability is a key feature in tuning their mechanical properties and their degradation behaviors. In this chapter, we review the properties of most common types of poly(α-esters), starting from their monomers. We focus on the development of suitable mathematical models to describe both their polymerization kinetics, carried out by ring-opening polymerization, and their degradation kinetics, and we show how these models can be beneficial to understand and control the preparation and fate of these materials.