It isn't every day that you take the opportunity to think about the things you typically take for granted. For instance, you might not always think about the many machines, computers, and components that went into manufacturing the computer or tablet you're reading this article on – but where would you be without it? However, let's go even deeper. What about the medical devices that have been developed, perfected, and relied on for years with the sole purpose of keeping us healthy? Something like that is definitely worth a closer look. This time, the focus is on medical tubing.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of patients rely on sterile medical tubes, hoses, and pipes to do everything from delivering a blood transfusion to administering vital medicine and nutrients. With that said, it becomes evident that with without high quality medical tubes, much that can be done to heal, help, and cure in the field of medicine would actually be far outside the realm of possibility.

For example, peristaltic pumps are used every day to pump a variety of fluids in and out of patients' bodies. Typically, peristaltic pumps are used for pumping IV fluids, bypass surgery, dialysis, and much more. The one thing these applications have in common is that they all benefit from medical tubing. Without medical tubing, dialysis would by less effective, bypass surgery would be far more dangerous, and IV lines would be less successful in effectively nourishing and treating patients.

From coronary and Neurovascular applications to cardiac rhythm management and vascular access tubes, both single and multi lumen medical tubes have become an absolute necessity in the medical industry. Whether they're being used for better management of fluid or to give access to therapeutic or diagnostic devices, medical tubes are – to use a sports analogy – a serious playmaker for life saving medical applications and procedures everywhere.

Most medical tubes are either single lumen tubing or multi lumen medical tubing, meaning that they have one channel for one-way transfer, or multiple channels to transport multiple fluids and gases via multiple channels, or to simultaneously pump many substances in and out of a device or patient. Medical tubing is typically extruded plastic, which melts plastic to create a single continuous profile that is sterile, resistant to corrosion, chemicals, and solvents. This makes it extremely resilient, and perfect for use in a medical setting. As an added benefit, medical tubing is also very easy to bond to devices such as plastic connectors, making integration with other medical devices simple, fast, and effective.

So next time you find yourself in a hospital for any reason, think about the precision that goes behind even the most common and oft-overlooked materials, like medical tubes. If you're not too preoccupied – remember the role they play and how medicine might be different if we had to live without them.