A medical device is any device intended to be used for medical purposes. Medical devices benefit patients by helping health care providers diagnose and treat patients and helping patients overcome sickness or disease, improving their quality of life. Significant potential for hazards are inherent when using a device for medical purposes and thus medical devices must be proved safe and effective with reasonable assurance before regulating governments allow marketing of the device in their country. As a general rule, as the associated risk of the device increases the amount of testing required to establish safety and efficacy also increases. Further, as associated risk increases the potential benefit to the patient must also increase.

Discovery of what would be considered a medical device by modern standards dates as far back as c. 7000 BC in Baluchistan where Neolithic dentists used flint-tipped drills and bowstrings.^[1] Study of archeology and Roman medical literature also indicate that many types of medical devices were in widespread use during the time of ancient Rome.^[2] In the United States it wasn't until the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) in 1938 that medical devices were regulated. Later in 1976, the Medical Device Amendments to the FD&C Act established medical device regulation and oversight as we know it today in the United States.^[3] Medical device regulation in Europe as we know it today came into effect in the 1993 by what is collectively known as the Medical Device Directive (MDD). On May 26, 2017 the Medical Device Regulation (MDR) replaced the MDD.