Bioactive Glass Scaffold

When you break a bone in your body, the bone is only able to repair itself effectively if all of the original material is present and a good contact can be forged between the fragments. If this is not the case, a big problem exists. This bioactive glass scaffold is designed to sit between fragments of bone in place of missing material. However, the glass doesn’t replace the bone fragment permanently, it actually acts as a bridge for natural bone growth. As the bone grows it consumes the scaffold, eventually leading to a perfectly fused join. The scaffold is porous, so it contains an interconnected network of pores so that cells, blood vessels and new bone can penetrate into the material. The scaffold is seeded with the patient’s own cells before implantation, which stimulates bone growth. Materially, the scaffold has to possess a number of important characteristics. It needs to be biocompatible so the body doesn’t reject it, it needs to be bioactive so it will fuse to existing bone, it needs to withstand the same loads as the surrounding bone, and it must degrade as new bone grows through it.