Mesoporous Biomaterials: a Lexicon and Structured Bibliography of Reviews

Abstract

Accessing mesoporous and nanostructured biomaterial information can be particularly time-consuming and problematic due to the interdisciplinary nature of the field. Relevant papers can be found across a broad range of journals and various key words are needed to comprehensively retrieve information. A keyword lexicon and themed bibliography of over 250 review articles from more than 100 different journals has therefore been assembled to aid students and researchers in this expanding field. Reviews dedicated to fabrication of mesoporous materials and some key characterisation techniques are grouped together. Reviews focussed on specific medical issues like biocompatibility and toxicological testing are also provided. Medical applications that have been the focus of reviews include drug delivery, cancer therapy, medical imaging, orthopaedics, tissue engineering, biofiltration, biosensing and bioanalysis. The following mesoporous materials also have had dedicated reviews on biomedical uses: silica, silicon, silicates, metallic biomaterials, metal organic frameworks, carbonaceous materials, calcium phosphates, titania, and alumina. The academic literature, excluding textbook and textbook chapters, was searched using the lexicon shown in table 1 to capture the field, in conjunction with “review”. Searching was conducted via Google, PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar and Web of Science. Reviews on mesoporous materials which focussed on non-medical applications were also excluded. Reviews based on nanoscale component structures with mesoporosity, like nanotubes, were included, whilst reviews solely on solid nanoparticles were not. The reviews found have been grouped as shown schematically in figure 1, depending on whether their emphasis is on fabrication, characterisation, medical testing or specific medical uses. General reviews which featured both medical and nonmedical applications have been included, but those focussed solely on non-medical applications have not. Reviewswhich discuss the applicability of various characterization techniques to mesoporous materials in general, or specific mesoporous materials, were included. Most of the reviews that focus on one specificmesoporousmaterial for one specific medical application were grouped within the medical application section, rather than the corresponding dedicated material section.