Bioresorbability and biocompatibility of aliphatic polyesters

Poly(α-hydroxy acids) derived from lactic and glycolic acids are introduced in order to make easier the critical discussions of the following problems from literature data: biocompatibility, biodegradability, bioresorbability, mechanism of hydrolysis (enzymaticvs simple chemistry), polymodality of molecular weight distributions during degradation and the effects of the presence of oligomers.