Engineering surfaces of polymer-based medical implants for tissue repair and regeneration

Polymer-based medical implants hold significant importance in modern healthcare due to their unique properties and versatile applications. Before implantation, tailoring the interfacial interactions between the implant and the biological tissues via the functional modification of implant surfaces is a vital step in addressing key challenges associated with implants while improving patient outcomes, such as reduced immune rejection, improved tissue integration, bioactive signaling, infection resistance, long-term stability, etc. In this review, we first introduce some typical polymeric materials used for medical implants, and then systematically illustrate various surface functionalization strategies of polymer-based medical implants, and finally provide a brief overview of the current challenges and future directions associated with highly efficient and universal implants' surface-functionalization strategies.