Biocompatible implants in orthopedics: bone tissue engineering

Introduction Technological advances in bone tissue engineering have improved orthopaedic implants and surgical techniques for bone reconstruction. This approach allows overcoming inconvenience of the paucity of autologous materials available and donor site morbidity.Aim To demonstrate advances of the past 30 years in the development of bioimplants providing alternatives to bone grafting in reconstructive orthopaedics.Methods Preparing the review, the scientific platforms such as PubMed, Scopus, ResearchGate, RSCI were used for information searching. Search words or word combinations were bioactive osteoinductive implants, bone grafting, bone reconstruction, hydroxyapatite, bone scaffolds.Results The main trends in tissue engineering in the field of orthopaedics are represented by construction of three-dimensional structure implants guiding cell migration, proliferation and differentiation as well as mechanical support. Association with bone morphogenetic proteins, growth factors enables proliferation and differentiation of cell types of the targeted bone tissue. A promising advancement should be biodegradability with a controllable degradation rate to compliment cell/tissue in-growth and maturation in limb reconstruction.Discussion This review presents and discusses the experimental and clinical application of biotolerant, bioinert and bioactive materials for reconstructive bone surgery. Future generations of biomaterials are designed to be osteoconductive and osteoinductive.Conclusion Properties of polycaprolactone (PCL) filled with hydroxyapatite (from 10 to 50 wt %) make this hybrid material with controllable absorption a promising strategy for reconstructive surgery in comparison to other materials.