<front xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="http://jats.nlm.nih.gov/publishing/1.1/xsd/JATS-journalpublishing1-mathml3.xsd" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
    <journal-meta>
      <journal-id journal-id-type="publisher-id">JCHEM</journal-id>
      <journal-title-group>
        <journal-title>Journal of Chemistry</journal-title>
      </journal-title-group>
      <issn pub-type="epub">2090-9071</issn>
      <issn pub-type="ppub">2090-9063</issn>
      <publisher>
        <publisher-name>Hindawi</publisher-name>
      </publisher>
    </journal-meta>
    <article-meta>
      <article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.1155/2018/7312147</article-id>
      <article-id pub-id-type="publisher-id">7312147</article-id>
      <article-categories>
        <subj-group subj-group-type="Materials Chemistry">
          <subject>Research Article</subject>
        </subj-group>
      </article-categories>
      <title-group>
        <article-title>Investigation into Polyurethane at Varying Dose Rates of Ionizing Radiation for Clinical Application</article-title>
      </title-group>
      <contrib-group>
        <contrib contrib-type="author" id="U64857451"> <contrib-id contrib-id-type="orcid">http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4557-7933</contrib-id><name><surname>Cooke</surname><given-names>Shelley L.</given-names></name><email>slcooke@vt.edu</email><xref ref-type="aff" rid="I1"><sup>1</sup></xref></contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author" id="U23470382" corresp="yes">
          <contrib-id contrib-id-type="orcid">http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7401-7209</contrib-id>
          <name>
            <surname>Whittington</surname>
            <given-names>Abby R.</given-names>
          </name>
          <email>awhit@vt.edu</email>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="I1">
            <sup>1</sup>
          </xref>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="I2">
            <sup>2</sup>
          </xref>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="Academic Editor" id="U91564075">
          <name>
            <surname>Grohens</surname>
            <given-names>Yves</given-names>
          </name>
        </contrib>
      </contrib-group>
      <aff id="I1">
        <sup>1</sup>
        <addr-line>Department of Materials Science and Engineering</addr-line>
        <addr-line>Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University</addr-line>
        <addr-line>Blacksburg</addr-line>
        <addr-line>VA 24061</addr-line>
        <country>USA</country>
        <ext-link ext-link-type="domain-name">vt.edu</ext-link>
      </aff>
      <aff id="I2">
        <sup>2</sup>
        <addr-line>Department of Chemical Engineering</addr-line>
        <addr-line>Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University</addr-line>
        <addr-line>Blacksburg</addr-line>
        <addr-line>VA 24061</addr-line>
        <country>USA</country>
        <ext-link ext-link-type="domain-name">vt.edu</ext-link>
      </aff>
      <pub-date pub-type="publication-year">
        <year>2018</year>
      </pub-date>
      <pub-date pub-type="archival-date"><day>1</day><month>10</month><year>2018</year>
</pub-date>
      <volume>2018</volume>
      <history>
        <date date-type="received">
          <day>25</day>
          <month>04</month>
          <year>2018</year>
        </date>
        <date date-type="accepted">
          <day>16</day>
          <month>07</month>
          <year>2018</year>
        </date>
        <date date-type="pub"><day>1</day><month>10</month><year>2018</year>
        </date>
      </history>
      <permissions>
        <copyright-year>2018</copyright-year>
        <copyright-holder>Copyright &#xa9; 2018 Shelley L. Cooke and Abby R. Whittington.</copyright-holder>
        <license xlink:href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">
          <license-p>This is an open access article distributed under the <ext-link xlink:href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution License</ext-link>, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.</license-p>
        </license>
      </permissions>
      <abstract>
        <p>Polyurethanes (PUs) are commonly used materials for medical devices. These devices are exposed repeatedly to radiation when patients undergo radiotherapy treatments. It has been found that peripherally inserted central catheters (PICCs) and central venous catheters (CVCs) fail at an increased rate (14.7&#x0025; and 8.8&#x0025;, respectively) when radiated. Currently, little research is available on increased failure seen in conjunction with radiation, but complex <italic>in vivo</italic> environments within a human patient make it difficult to isolate effects of individual variables. This research investigated effects of radiation in an aqueous environment to determine whether radiation combined with a mimicked <italic>in vivo</italic> environment is sufficient to change PU devices. The following dose rates were used in this study: 3.2&#x2009;Gy&#xb7;min<sup>&#x2212;1</sup>, 4.5&#x2009;Gy&#xb7;min<sup>&#x2212;1</sup>, 44&#x2009;Gy&#xb7;min<sup>&#x2212;1</sup>, and 833&#x2009;Gy&#xb7;min<sup>&#x2212;1</sup>. Samples were characterized in four main ways: cellular response, physical changes, chemical changes, and mechanical changes. Results reveal normal cellular response at all dose rates, indicating dose rate does not alter cellular adhesion or proliferation, and biocompatibility of the material is not being altered. Results from physical, chemical, and mechanical effects confirm that varying dose rates alone do not initiate material changes, which negates the hypothesis that varying dose rates of radiation contribute to the complications in PICC and CVCs.</p>
      </abstract>
      <counts>
        <fig-count count="4" />
        <table-count count="3" />
        <ref-count count="45" />
        <page-count count="8" />
      </counts>
    </article-meta>
  </front>