Safety and Efficiency of Biomimetic Nanohydroxyapatite/Polyamide 66 Composite in Rabbits and Primary Use in Anterior Cervical Discectomy and Fusion

Hui Xu,Xuesong Zhang,Yan Wang,Xuelian Zhang,Xiaojing Su

doi:10.1155/2014/696045

Abstract

This study was conducted to validate the safety and efficiency of biomimetic nanohydroxyapatite/polyamide 66 (n-HA/PA66) composite in animal model (rabbit) and report its application in anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) for 4, 12, and 24 weeks. N-HA/PA66 composite was implanted into one-side hind femur defects and the control defects were kept empty as blank controls. A combination of macroscopic and histomorphometric studies was performed up to 24 weeks postoperatively and compared with normal healing. 60 cervical spondylosis myelopathy and radiculopathy patients who were subjected to ACDF using n-HA/PA66 and PEEK cage were involved in this study with six-month minimum follow-up. Their radiographic (cage subsidence, fusion status, and segmental sagittal alignment (SSA)) and clinical (VAS and JOA scales) data before surgery and at each follow-up were recorded and compared. Nanohydroxyapatite/polyamide 66 composite is safe and effective in animal experiment and ACDF.

Highlights

Ideal bone graft substitute materials should have good osteogenesis, biocompatibility, and bioactivity
Bone grafts are widely used in orthopedics surgery and should provide support, bone conduction, and induction
Autogenous bone grafts are considered the gold standard in bone transplantation, but donor sites complications concern many surgeons

Summary

Introduction

Ideal bone graft substitute materials should have good osteogenesis, biocompatibility, and bioactivity. They can provide enough mechanical strength to meet the fundamental support requirements during bone healing period. Hydroxyapatite (HA) shows a similar composition and structure to natural bone mineral and has been considered to be an ideal material to build bone repair materials due to its osteoconductivity. Its brittleness extremely limits its use in load-bearing bone repair [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. Polyamide (PA) has good biocompatibility probably because of its similarity to collagen protein in chemical structure and active groups [8, 9]. PA has excellent mechanical properties resulting from the strong hydrogen bonds between the amide groups in PA macromolecules [10, 11]

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