BIOMATERIALS Polyurethane–polyvinylpyrrolidone iodine blends as potential urological biomaterials Piyush W. Raut 1 , Anand P. Khandwekar 2, * , and Neeti Sharma 1 1 Symbiosis School of Biological Sciences, Symbiosis International (Deemed University), Gram-Lavale; Taluka - Mulshi, Pune, India 2 School of Engineering, Ajeenkya DY Patil University (ADYPU), Charholi Budruk, Pune 412105, India Received: 25 January 2018 Accepted: 11 May 2018 Ó Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018 ABSTRACT Biomaterial-centred infections are major complications of implanted and indwelling medical devices like urological and venous catheters with significant economic consequences and increased patient morbidity. In the present study, polyurethane (PU) blends comprising the polymeric complex of polyvinylpyrrolidone iodine (PVPI) were developed. The developed PU/PVPI blends were extensively characterized for both surface and thermal properties using contact angle, ATR-FTIR, SEM-EDAX, TGA and DSC analyses. The suit- ability of the developed blends as urinary tract biomaterial was evaluated using bacterial adhesion (both qualitative and quantitative), protein adsorption and salt encrustation studies. The PU blends with PVPI exhibited reduced protein adsorption and excellent antimicrobial efficacy against the three clinically rele- vant bacteria, viz. Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus epidermidis and Pseu- domonas aeruginosa. A progressive increase in the antiadhesive and antimicrobial efficacy was observed with the increase in PVPI concentration from 0.5 to 1.5% w/w in the PU/PVPI blends. The developed blends showed a strong resistance towards salt encrustation process as the deposition of the salts, namely struvite and hydroxyapatite, which usually forms the major components of urinary tract encrustation, was significantly reduced on PU/PVPI blends. Due to the combined antiadhesive, antimicrobial and encrustation-resistant properties, along with good stability these PU/PVPI blends can offer a promising strategy to reduce medical device-associated infections. Introduction Medical devices are an integral part of medical practice, helping to improve patient’s well-being, but despite all the benefits, infections associated with medical devices constitute a significant healthcare burden [1, 2]. Urological medical devices are utilized in the management of diverse urological diseases, namely obstructive uropathy, urinary incontinence, radiation fibrosis, retroperitoneal fibrosis or carcino- mas [3, 4]. Indwelling urethral catheters and ureteral Address correspondence to E-mail: anand_hms@hotmail.com https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-018-2445-7 J Mater Sci Biomaterials