Mechanical verification of soft-tissue attachment on bioactive glasses and titanium implants

✍ Scribed by Desheng Zhao; Niko Moritz; Erik Vedel; Leena Hupa; Hannu T. Aro

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2008
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 492 KB
• Volume: 4
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1742-7061
• DOI: 10.1016/j.actbio.2008.02.012

✦ Synopsis

Soft-tissue attachment is a desired feature of many clinical biomaterials. The aim of the current study was to design a suitable experimental method for tensile testing of implant incorporation with soft-tissues. Conical implants were made of three compositions of bioactive glass (SiO 2 -P 2 O 5 -B 2 O 3 -Na 2 O-K 2 O-CaO-MgO) or titanium fiber mesh (porosity 84.7%). The implants were surgically inserted into the dorsal subcutaneous soft-tissue or back muscles in the rat. Soft-tissue attachment was evaluated by pull-out testing using a custom-made jig 8 weeks after implantation. Titanium fiber mesh implants had developed a relatively high pull-out force in subcutaneous tissue (12.33 ± 5.29 N, mean ± SD) and also measurable attachment with muscle tissue (2.46 ± 1.33 N). The bioactive glass implants failed to show mechanically relevant soft-tissue bonding. The experimental set-up of mechanical testing seems to be feasible for verification studies of soft-tissue attachment. The inexpensive small animal model is beneficial for large-scale in vivo screening of new biomaterials.