The health of patients is threatened by nosocomial infections

it may finally resulted in high hospitalization costs and fatalities. Firstly

bacteria adhere onto biomedical polymer materials or medical device surface

and ultimately biofilms develop. To decrease the incidence of device-associated infections

the surface of biomedical polymer materials or medical devices should resist or prevent bacterial attachment

establishment

and proliferation. So far

most antibacterial methods for preventing the infection of medical device are antifouling (bacteria-repelling) strategy or bactericidal strategy

their combination of antifouling and bactericidal strategy and switching strategy from bactericidal to antifouling. ( 1 ) Antifouling (bacteria-repelling) strategy usually involves modification of the hydrophobic surface of the medical device to reduce the bacterial attachment by coating with antifouling polymers (polyethylene glycol

zwitterionic polymers

poly (Nvinyl pyrrolidone)

2-methacryloyloxyethyl phosphorylcholine

etc)

superhydrophobic surface or lubricant-infused surface. However

antifouling strategy hardly kills the adherent bacteria

which will lead to the subsequent bacterial proliferation and biofilm formation. (2) The bactericidal strategy incorporates the active biocides such as cationic polymers

antimicrobial peptides

antibiotics or bactericidal nanoparticles onto/into the surface or bulk polymer

while it suffers from the high cytotoxicity of biocides or antibiotic resistance. However

the preparation procedures of above methods are usually tedious with complicated chemical reactions or bactericidal nanoparticles could easily release from the medical device. (3) The combination of antifouling and bactericidal strategy could avoid the disadvantages of above two approaches. The antifouling and bactericidal components were incorporated through copolymerizaion

blend

etc. However

the contents and functions of above two components could be easily disturbed. (4) Switching strategy from bactericidal to antifouling could release the dead bacteria after switching. Before switching bactericidal components firstly kill the live bacteria. However

the preparation of this method is tedious and the switching is under certain condition. Although the research on antibacterial polymer and medical device has made progress

the antibacterial strategy still exist some deficiencies. The following three aspects need to be broken through: (1) The establishment of novel method to modify the biomaterials and medical device; (2) Antibacterial surface with excellent antibacterial and biocompatible properties; (3) Development of multifunctional biomaterial and medical device

such as antibacterial

anticoagulant and lubricant properties.