Survey on Calcium Phosphate Polymers and their Application in Bone Repair and Replacement

Although the field of tissue engineering is still seen as a novel area in the health sciences, it is projected that applications in areas like bone repair and replacement will become a billion dollar business in no more than two decades. Nowadays, bone repair material comes usually from the same patient (autografts) or a donor (allografts), but these methods can only be applied when the area to be repaired is not very large. Fortunately, researchers have started developing larger scaffolds from scratch starting by testing different materials. Calcium Phosphates/CaP polymers composites present a promising alternative to allogenic and autogolous bone grafts in order to address the growing needs of the population, and much of the research on these compounds is scaffold based. A scaffold alone can be used to guide bone regeneration and repair defects or be combined with cells and/or biologics, which are added to further enhance bone regeneration. There are several characteristics that are considered to be essential for bone scaffolds, such as biocompatibility, osteoconductivity and interconnected porosity. Other considerations in bone scaffold design and optimization include biodegradability, permeability and mechanical integrity. In their survey article, Amy J. Wagoner Johnson and Brad A. Herschler compiled data about porosity, composition, microstructure, flaws, and relailability of different types of CaP polymers for the purpose of providing useful information in the design of bone tissue bioscaffolds.

I found this article very interesting since it deals with a subject that we have gone through in one of our SNBALs. It also appeals to me that this survey on CaPs was made by the Department of Engineering and Material Science of the University of Illinois. It is the perfect example of how pure engineering principles are integrated with biology concepts to solve a biomedical problem.

Source: http://bit.ly/acXK6g