A Novel Synthetic Dental and Bone Graft Substitutes: A Proof of Concept Prototype

Abstract

Dental and Bone graft   substitutes are used in Dental surgery, orthopaedic surgery and Neuro - surgery. . They are used in filling defects or voids resulting from bone loss due to trauma or deformity. Since decades autograft, allograft and mineral bone graft like Calcium phosphate, Calcium sulphate, Tri Calcium phosphate are being used. A novel bone biomaterial which is a nanocomposite of ECM and HA has been developed. ECM provides the body's own natural bone growth factors to supplement the action of the bone graft.

We prepared   an ECM emulsion with a suitable organic solvent and blend it with simulated body fluid (SBF) for deposition of nano crystals is the first step. After initial evidence we optimized the SBF and ECM composition for faster nucleation and HA nano crystal growth. We are hypothesizing that the non-collagenous gap junction between tropocollagen in the collagen fibrils will be sufficient by optimizing collagen concentration to induce nucleation of HA and achieve high strength in short time.  To study the physical characterization of ECM-HA formulations (freeze dried sample) SEM and XRD were used.

The results showed that the materials mated successfully with evidence of HA

Deposition of ECM as demonstrated by Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The X ray diffraction shows proper crystal deposition.

This novel biomaterial which is an ECM-HA nanocomposite can address the downsides of autograft, allograft and existing synthetic bone substitutes. Such a novel bilateral composite will be a common substitute for multiple clinical needs     as it can create most of the device formats like cortical, cancellous, granules, paste etc.

It can be developed as a therapeutic range of class I predicate devices for various bone defects managements