Vitamin E is a common compound used for
tocopherols and
tocotrienols (α, β, γ, δ); it is the component of many natural products of both plant and animal origin. Thanks to its powerful
antioxidant capacity,
vitamin E has been very successful in hip and
knee arthroplasty, used to confer resistance to oxidation to irradiated
UHMWPE. The positive results of these studies have made
vitamin E an important object of research in the biomedical field, highlighting other important properties, such as anti-bacterial, -inflammatory, and -
cancer activities. In fact, there is an extensive literature dealing with
vitamin E in different kinds of material processing,
drug delivery, and development of surface coatings.
Vitamin E is widely discussed in the literature, and it is possible to find many reviews that discuss the
biological role of
vitamin E and its applications in food packaging and
cosmetics. However, to date, there is not a review that discusses the biomedical applications of
vitamin E and that points to the methods used to detect it within a solid. This review specifically aims to compile research about new biomedical applications of
vitamin E carried out in the last 20 years, with the intention of providing an overview of the methodologies used to combine it with implantable
biomaterials, as well as to detect and characterize it within these materials.