Fabrication of the antibiotic-releasing gelatin/PMMA bone cement

Abstract

High mechanical property especially the exorbitant elastic modulus is the common complication of the clinical polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) bone cement which will generate the fracture of the adjacent bone and even aseptic loosening, other side effects including excess thermal temperature and low efficiency of the drug release bother the development of the PMMA bone cement. The present study aims to investigate the optimum dosage of gelatin as the porogen, which reduced the elastic modulus of the bone cement to the relatively close level of the cancellous bone. Meanwhile, better antibiotic release profile was introduced by enhancing the specific surface area and interconnectivity than the neat PMMA bone cement. Compared to the PMMA bone cement, the mechanical and thermal property was successfully reduced by the porous structure, the component with 200–400 μm gelatin has the better porosity which resulted in the increasing drug release amount and rate than that of the PMMA bone cement. Furthermore, data analysis and fitting curve could guide experiments, in turn, to obtain the PMMA bone cement with specific requirements of the mechanical properties by the addition of gelatin as the pore-forming agent, and in some cases for predictive purposes, to estimate how a change of gelatin may affect the porosity, mechanical properties, and drug release profiles.