New and Conventional Simulated Body Fluids

Abstract

A simulated body fluid (SBF) with ion concentrations nearly equal to those of human blood plasma has been used widely for in vitro assessment of the bioactivity of artificial materials. A conventional SBF (c-SBF) in general use, however, has lower HCO 3 - and higher Cl - ion concentrations than those of human blood plasma. It is known that a performance of c-SBF does not always show good reproducibility, partially due to the preparing process of SBF. In the present study, the preparation process was modified, and a newly improved simulated body fluid (n-SBF) was designed to have concentrations of ions equal to those of human blood plasma excepting that of HCO 3 - , the concentration of which is lower than the level of saturation with respect to calcite. Two different preparing processes such as powder dissolving and liquid mixing processes were attempted. The n-SBFs with nominal ion concentration were prepared and the ion concentrations of prepared n-SBFs were unchanged at least 4 weeks. The bioactive glasses showed almost same bioactivity in both n-SBFs and c-SBF. The n-SBFs are considered to produce apatite under quite similar condition to the body environment, thereby being useful for in vitro assessment of bioactivity of artificial material.