Mieczyslaw Pokorski - Trends in Biomedical Research

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Implantology, as a specialized branch of orthopedics and dentistry, has been recognized by clinician and researchers globally for quite some time. With the discovery of the phenomenon of osseointegration in the 19501960s, titanium became the material of choice for most clinicians in the field of dental and orthopedic implants (Brnemark et al. ). Therefore, osseointegration still remains an important challenge in implantology research.

Researchers and clinicians have always been of the opinion that supplemental treatment with drugs may help in improving the bone binding ability of implants. Although systemic administration of drugs along with implant placement is a conventional approach, side effects, such as systemic toxicity, short-term benefits, and patient inconvenience, limit their use. In contrast to these, localized therapy is generally devoid of these limitations (Anselmo and Mitragotri ). Other FDA-approved biodegradable polymers were tried to incorporate drug molecules, which may be exemplified by poly lactic acid (PLA) or poly lactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA). However, high temperature reactions that occur during the chemical bonding phase of most materials have discouraged their further use. Lessons learned from the past have guided us toward the use of modern implants coated with drug molecules using novel processes that avoid the aforementioned concerns. Simple, low temperature, reproducible processes, which can be optimized to guide extended release patterns of drugs, have become the present day methods of choice. Other ideal characteristics of such devices include the absence or minimal systemic toxicity by targeting at the organ, tissue, or cellular level, which allows the use of a lower drug dose. Additional care needs to be taken during the fabrication process, to retain the original mechanical properties of an implant.