**6.5. Medical applications**

Two- and three-dimensional fiber based structures are used in protective medical apparel such as baby diapers, feminine hygiene products, adult incontinence items, dry and wet pads, nursing pads or nasal strips, operation drapes, gowns and packs, face masks, surgical dress‐ ings. Two- and three-dimensional woven, braid, warp knitted and nonwoven structures find also more functional applications as in vascular prosthesis due to good mechanical properties and better ingrowth of tissue to seal the prosthesis walls, grafts for inborn vessel anomaly or arteriosclerotic damage, soft tissue such as skin and cartilage, artificial tendons and ligaments, wound dressing, absorbable and non-absorbable sutures, stents, tissue engineering scaffolds as to repair or regenerate tissues through combinations of implanted cells-biomaterial scaffolds-biologically active molecules, blood filters, plasters, compression bandages, surgical hosiery, and hospital bedding. It was also demonstrated that 2D and 3D fabrics are dimen‐ sionally stable, have similar mechanical properties with human organs and are biocompatible [57, 87, 149]. Recently, 2D nanofiber-based nonwoven fabrics are considered to be used in wound healing, artificial organ components and tissue engineering and implant materials.
