Abstract
Disorders related to the bone health are becoming a significant concern due to subsequent rise in ageing human population. It is estimated that more than two million bone-surgeries are performed worldwide with an annual cost of $2.5 billion. In order to replace damaged bone-tissues and restore their function, biomaterials consisting of stainless steels, cobalt-chromium and titanium alloys are implanted. However, these permanent (non-biodegradable) implants often lead to stress-shielding effects and ions release as they interact with the cells and fluids in the body. It is required to overcome these issues by improving the quality of implant materials and increasing their service life. Recently, research in biodegradable materials, consisting of magnesium alloys in particular, has received global attention owning to their biocompatibility and closer mechanical properties to the natural bone. However, due to their rapid corrosion rate in the body fluids, clinical applications of Mg-alloys as viable bone-implants have been restricted. A number of Mg-alloys have been tested since (bothin vivoandin vitro) to optimize their biodegradation rare and corrosion properties. The present review summarizes the most recent developments in Mg-alloys designed with biodegradation tailored to the bone-cells growth and highlights the most successful ways to optimize their surface properties for optimum cell/material interaction.
Highlights
Bone defects and associated health problems affect a significant number of human population throughout the world
One-third of these patients are hospitalized and subjected to surgeries for implant replacement incurring significant health care expenditure [2]. Due to their superior mechanical properties, metallic biomaterials have dominated the market associated with boneimplants because they provide sufficient load-bearing capacity to the implant
Key mechanical properties of some of these biomedical alloys are shown in Table 1 [7,8,9,10,11,12]
Summary
Bone defects and associated health problems affect a significant number of human population throughout the world. One-third of these patients are hospitalized and subjected to surgeries for implant replacement incurring significant health care expenditure [2] Due to their superior mechanical properties, metallic biomaterials have dominated the market associated with boneimplants because they provide sufficient load-bearing capacity to the implant. These biomaterials were developed from 1960 to 1970 with the goal to achieve a suitable combination of physical properties to replace the effected tissues with minimal toxicity It was not until 1980 that problems with stainless steel and titanium-based implants were surfaced in the form of stress-shielding phenomenon [13,14] and release of ions through corrosion and wear process, which could cause infections and diseases [15,16].
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