Multiple biological, synthetic and hybrid polymers are used for multiple medical applications. A wide range of different polymers is available, and they have further the advantage to be tunable in physical, chemical and biological properties in a wide range to match the requirements of specific applications. This review gives a brief overview about the introduction and developments of polymers in medicine in general, addressing first stable polymers, then polymers with degradability as a first biological function, followed by various other functional and responsive polymers. It is shown up that biomedical polymers comprise not only bulk materials, but also coatings and pharmaceutical nano-carriers for drugs. There is subsequently an overview of the most frequently used polymer classes. The main body of the review then is structured according to the medical applications, where key requirements of the applications and the currently used polymer solutions are indicated

A wide range of biomedical devices is applied clinically in contact with blood. Tailoring the surface properties of the involved biomaterials is a common approach to enhance performance and to limit adverse reactions. This review summarizes current trends in coating technologies developed for that purpose. Inorganic coatings were shown to substantially improve the durability and inertness of biomaterials while a number of advanced polymer coatings were demonstrated to be very effective by targeting specific biochemical pathways. However, to fully utilize the power of these bioactive coatings safety issues need to be thoroughly addressed in future studies.