Polymer Composites for Bone Reconstruction

Abstract

The need for reconstructive surgery of bones is continuously increasing along with the ageing of the population as well as the increase of traumatologic injuries. In the United States, the number of bone grafts was 350,000 in 2001. Nowadays, over 500,000 bone graft procedures are performed annually, and approximately 2.2 million worldwide (Giannoudis et al., 2005). The estimated cost of these procedures approaches US$2.5 billion per year. Hence, the considerable demand for these replacement procedures cannot be met solely by using donor material. Therefore, superior synthetic orthopaedic materials and techniques should be available on the market for clinical practice. Adjustable porosity, bioactivity, identical biomechanics, as well as all the other tissue-friendly properties to bone are central for achieving a durable, bonding-like, interface between the synthetic material and bone (Aho et al., 2004). Actually, modern material technology would have all the know-how for preparing excellent synthetic orthopaedic materials. Autografts are still regarded as optimal reconstruction material, because of the lack of good enough synthetic materials. However, in orthopaedics, the demands for synthetic materials could be fulfilled by using composite structures. In fact, it is possible to mimic better the structures of living materials, like bone, cartilage or teeth using composite structures. Therefore, there is still a constant need to search for better synthetic bone substitute materials for tissue engineering (Chung et al., 2007).