BIOMECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF RESORBABLE COMPOSITE BONE FRACTURE REPAIR PLATES

摘要

Current bone repair implants for use within the body are made from metals [1, 2], which have disadvantages such as stress shielding and can remain in the body permanently. In addition, a fractured bone fixated with a metal plate may re-fracture upon removal of the implant [3]. This is due to the fact that bone does not carry sufficient load during the healing process. Recently, a move towards degradable composite materials for bone repair applications (to replace metal plate equivalents) has been viewed as extremely favourable [4, 5]. The main objective of these composite plates would be to degrade not only in vivo but also to take an active part in the tissue regeneration process. The main advantage of having a material that degrades is so that an implant would not necessitate a second surgical event for removal. In addition, biodegradation may offer other advantages and an implant prepared from biodegradable materials could be engineered to degrade at a rate that would transfer load slowly to the healing bone.