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UPPSALA, Sweden: The success of dental and orthopaedic implants largely depends on integration into adjacent bone tissue. A research group at Uppsala University in Sweden has developed a new coating that has been shown to improve integration into bone and to prevent rejection of implants.
Preliminary experiments, which were conducted at the Institut Laue-Langevin, an international research centre based in Grenoble in France, demonstrated that titanium oxide surfaces coated with a bisphosphonate-modified hyaluronan gel bind to bone morphogenetic protein-2, which is then released in a controlled manner once the surface comes into contact with a solution of calcium ions. According to the researchers, this process can stimulate the growth of bone around the implant.
Currently, the researchers are planning to test similar materials for metal implants in trials to transfer the results to clinical application.
“We envisage that the materials will be used in medicine to modulate the healing process in bone in the future,” said Prof. Dmitri Ossipov, study author and associate professor at the university.
The study, titled “Polymeric smart coating strategy for titanium implants”, was published in the March issue of the Advanced Engineering Materials journal.
