Of all the materials used in cardiovascular implants, such as substitute heart valves, 99% have failed. Surprisingly, one that succeeded was pyrolytic carbon, which was used originally to clad nuclear fuel rods for submarine power plants. That material has gone on to amazing success in bodies of over 15M people whose lives have been saved by pyrolytic carbon-based synthetic heart valve implants. Literature has long noted that glass represents a strongly thrombogenic surface and a clot-inducing surface. Because "if there is one thing about which 100 years of medical research agrees, glass clots blood!" A series of canine vena carva implants have taken place to be sure that this unexpected result with the pyrolytic carbon (not any other type) was not a flaw of the testing procedure. This article provides some details of test results.
