Guidewires - All Specialties - Boston Scientific

Amplatz Super Stiff™ Guidewire

Boston Scientific's Amplatz Guidewire is a stainless steel wire with a flat-wire coil and PTFE coating. It is available in a variety of diameters and tip configurations to fit your preferences, your patients, and your procedures, designed so you can confidently straighten tortuous anatomies1 and deliver heavier instruments.2

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Amplatz Super Stiff™ Guidewire

Provides extra strength and stability during catheter placement and exchange during contralateral access and in carotid procedures.

CHOICE™ PT Extra Support Guidewire

Provides excellent access with a high level of support designed for easier device delivery in highly resistant lesions and extra support cases.

FORTÉ™ Floppy Guidewire and Marker Wire

FORTÉ Floppy Guidewire and Marker Wire is designed to provide enhanced steering for frontline cases with a soft tip, silicone coating and unibody stainless steel core. FORTÉ Floppy Marker integrates a precise lesion measurement system without compromising performance.

Hydra Jagwire™ High Performance Guidewire

The Hydra Jagwire Guidewire offers two tips on a single guidewire - a 10cm and a 5cm hydrophilic tip - giving physicians the ability to work with one or both. The 10cm hydrophilic Dream Tip™ End is designed for soft, smooth access. Its Endo-Glide™ Coating promotes smooth tracking and enhances tactile sensation.

Jagwire™ High Performance Guidewire

The Jagwire High Performance Guidewire has a 5cm hydrophilic tip to help facilitate selective cannulation and negotiation of difficult anatomy.

Jagwire™ Revolution High Performance Guidewire

The Jagwire Revolution High Performance Guidewire is a versatile .025” guidewire engineered to have the stiffness and pushability that you would expect in our Jagwire .035’’ guidewire combined with both access and exchange characteristics to help improve cannulation success in challenging anatomy.

Meier™ Guidewire

Super stiff support for strength and stability when placing large devices such as thoracic sheaths and in AAA procedures.

NaviPro™ Hydrophilic Guidewire

The NaviPro Hydrophilic Guidewire is a 100 percent hydrophilic guidewire designed for cannulation and smooth passage through tortuous anatomy.

NovaGold™ High Performance Guidewire

The NovaGold High Performance Guidewire is an .018” guidewire that provides a Triton™ Alloy Core for durability and a radiopaque tip for visibility.

PT²™ Light Support Guidewire

A resilient yet flexible guidewire designed to help navigate in cases of tortuous anatomy and highly resistant lesions.

PT²™ Moderate Support Guidewire

Offers increased resiliency with the ability to help steer and deliver devices in tortuous anatomy and highly resistant lesions.

SAVION™ Guidewires SAVION FLX & SAVION DLVR

Building on Trusted Technology.
Savion Guidewires exhibit attributes ideally matched for BTK interventions to help you treat complex lesions successfully and restore blood flow to the leg.

Sensor™ Nitinol Guidewire
with Hydrophilic Tip

The gold standard in guidewires. The global market leader for over two decades, Sensor Guidewire remains the preferred hybrid wire technology for kidney stone procedures.1

SENTAI™ Guidewires

Our line of SENTAI guidewires is designed with our customers’ most important performance requirements in mind; to provide physicians with the tools to successfully treat the simplest to most complex patients.

Zebra™ Guidewire

The guidewire that shows you the way. Nitinol wire with striped jacket designed to provide excellent visual feedback and handling.

Guidewires are thin, flexible metal wires that play a crucial role in minimally invasive treatments. They guide the placement of catheters and other medical instruments in complex vascular systems through blood vessels. They are coated with hydrophilic guidewire coatings, a type of medical coating which helps ensure smooth and safe navigation. Hydrophilic coatings form a smooth, low friction layer on their surface when they are exposed to bodily fluids. This “slippery-when-wet” layer has high lubricity and wettability. This significantly reduces patient discomfort. It also prevents adverse reactions, such as thrombosis that lead to longer hospital stays and increased healthcare costs.

This guide provides an introduction to hydrophilic guidewire coatings. We will discuss what they are as well as cover their top benefits in radiology and cardiology procedures. At the end, we compare guidewires coated with hydrophilic and hydrophobic coatings. So you will want to make sure you read to the end.

If you are interested in this topic you will find our guide on Hydrophilic Coatings for Medical Devices very useful. 

What are Hydrophilic Guidewire Coatings?

Hydrophilic guidewire coatings are surface modifications applied to guidewires. These coatings make the guidewire surfaces hydrophilic. Because they are water-loving they attract surrounding water molecules. As a result, they form hydrogels that have high lubricity and an extremely low coefficient of friction. 

The main purpose of these coatings is to make the surface of the wire “slippery-when-wet”. This greatly reduces friction between the guidewire and the vessel wall. Reduced friction allows guidewires to more easily navigate through narrow areas and complex blockages.

Hydromer®, Inc. manufactures and supplies hydrophilic guidewire coatings to medical device manufacturers. These coatings help surgeons easily navigate through twisted or narrowed arteries. Coated guidewires reduce the risk of adverse reactions and complications. Improved insertion and movement throughout the patient’s body also ensures reduced discomfort and injury.

Components of a Hydrophilic Guidewire

Hydrophilic guidewires are composed of a core and an outer coating. We discuss each in more detail below.

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Guidewire Core

The core of the guidewire is made of stainless steel or nitinol. Such materials enhance the strength and flexibility required to navigate through complex capillaries.

• Stainless Steel: Stainless steel guidewires are reasonably priced. They are durable and ideal for applications requiring high mechanical strength. Stainless steel also has excellent torque control and responsiveness compared to other guidewire core wire materials.
• Nitinol: Nitinol guidewires are more expensive due to their complex manufacturing processes. They have exceptional pushability, kink resistance, and flexibility. They are used in complex procedures requiring flexibility and softer torque response.

Guidewire Coating

The surface of the core (or wire) is coated with a hydrophilic guidewire coating. The coating covers the entirety of the guidewire surface. It plays a crucial role in the overall success and usability of a guidewire. 

Below is a list of hydrophilic materials applied on the surface of guidewires:

• Hydrophilic Polymers: Polymer-based hydrophilic coatings are versatile. They have excellent properties, such as wettability, lubricity, and low friction. Hydromer’s medical coatings also exhibit critical properties, such as biocompatibility and thromboresistance.
  • Some of the most popular hydrophilic polymers include poly(acrylic acid), polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), and polyethylene glycol (PEG). 
• Hydrogels: Hydrogels contain 90% water entrapped in a three-dimensional, hydrophilic polymer network. A gel-like layer is created when hydrogels come in contact with surrounding liquids. Such a layer is extremely slippery when wet.

Top 5 Benefits of Using Hydrophilic Coatings for Guidewires

Hydrophilic coatings play a critical role in complex endovascular procedures. Some examples include navigating tight iliac or femoropopliteal lesions. Their water-attracting properties reduce vessel trauma. They also prevent endothelial damage, spasms, or dissections during delicate procedures.

Here are a few of the key benefits of hydrophilic guidewire coatings:

1. Excellent Lubricity Means Smooth, Rapid Movement

Lubricity is an important property when it comes to achieving smooth movement and navigation. It improves both the efficiency and safety of guidewires in medical procedures.

Hydrophilic coatings are activated in the presence of bodily fluids. The hydrophilic surface treatment attracts and retains moisture from the surroundings. This creates a thin layer that offers high lubricity and reduced friction. This is why they are referred to as “slippery-when-wet”. Hydrophilic guidewire coatings retain lubricity throughout the interventional procedure.

2. Decreased Trauma

Recovery time heavily depends upon the level of arterial damage caused by friction between the guidewire and artery walls. In many medical procedures, vascular trauma becomes a main reason for longer hospital stays.

In short, the risk of vessel damage or injury during such procedures should be minimized to the maximum possible level. 

For this, hydrophilic guidewire coatings are helpful. They are used to reduce friction and improve safety during the procedure. This helps to reduce damage. 

3. Improved Trackability

Hydrophilic coated guidewires are able to smoothly, and rapidly pass through convoluted vascular paths. When such coatings are exposed to moisture, they create a super slippery, gel-like surface. This reduces the friction between the guidewire surface and twisted or tortuous blood vessels. This low-friction feel inside the vessel improves trackability.

4. Greater Visibility

Advanced hydrophilic coatings are radiopaque. In other words, they block radiation and improve visibility under X-ray or fluoroscopy.

Why is this important? 

The reason is that certain polymers and metal oxides absorb X-rays. They are combined with hydrophilic polymers to create radiopaque coatings. These coatings enable physicians enable physicians to track the location of the guidewire easily. As a result, the accuracy of catheter placement has increased significantly. 

5. Enhanced Precision

Reduced friction, and improved navigation ultimately provide enhanced precision. This cuts down procedure time, increases the success rate, and speeds up patient recovery.

Medical instruments coated with Hydromer® hydrophilic medical coatings enable physicians to navigate smoothly with increased precision. This is extremely beneficial during interventional procedures like angioplasty and stent deployment.

Hydrophilic vs. Hydrophobic Guidewire Coatings

Hydrophilic and hydrophobic coatings are the most commonly used guidewire coatings in the medical industry. So which is better, and which should be used?

Here are the key differences that will help you decide the best choice for your guidewires.

Conclusion

High performance hydrophilic medical coatings are vital to the overall reliability and success of guidewires. These coatings help improve performance as well as patient outcomes. 

Hydromer, Inc. is a medical coatings manufacturer with 40+ years of experience formulating and supplying customized hydrophilic medical coatings. Our company is focused on helping our customers improve the performance of their medical devices. 

Our team includes highly qualified Ph.D. chemists, scientists, and regulatory experts. No matter what stage of the product development lifecycle you are in, we can help. You will get more than just a medical coatings supplier. Our capabilities span from R&D and regulatory consulting to contract coating and technology transfer. When you need a full-service partner, choose Hydromer.  

Here is a quick list of contract services offered by Hydromer:

• Research and Development (R&D) services
• Contract coating services
• Specialized Analytical Testing
• Custom Machine Building
• Turn-key Operations
• Technology Transfer Services
• Technical consulting and support services