Bioceramics medical devices

There are multiple applications of fluoridated bioceramics, essentially as bone and tooth substitutes (Table 1), involving bulk ceramics, glasses, composite materials and coatings for medical devices and surface treatments. In some cases, fluoride ions can leach out of the material inducing a direct biological effect in a soluble form. However, considering the affinity of fluoride ions for apatite... 

Figure 1.1 Application of bioceramics in medical devices 100 years of history. (Adapted from Rieger (2001), and adjusted to current developments.)...

One of the most important requirements of bioceramics is their biocompa ability. This term encompasses not only the biological safety of a material as assessed by the ISO 10993 norm (2003, 2009, 2010) but also the mechanical and chemical characteristics, the design, sterilisation procedures and packaging of a medical device. 

Bioceramic materials have developed into a very powerful driver of advanced ceramics research and development. For many years bioceramics, both bioinert materials such as alumina, zirconia and, to a limited extent titania (Lindgren et al., 2009), and bioconductive materials such as hydroxyapatite, tricalcium phosphate and calcium phosphate cements, have been used successfully in dinical practice. In addition, applications continue to emerge that use biomaterials for medical devices. An excellent account of the wide range of bioceramics available today has recently been produced by Kokubo (2008), in which issues of the significance of the structure, mechanical properties and biological interaction of biomaterials are discussed, and their clinical applications in joint replacement, bone grafts, tissue engineering, and dentistry are reviewed. The type and consequences of cellular responses to a variety of today s biomaterials have been detailed in recent books (Di Silvio, 2008 Basu et al., 2009 Planell et al., 2009). 

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