Saeid Hesaraki, a member of the Materials and Energy Research Center (MERC) and a major participant in the study told the press that the nanocomposite would be injected safely to bone marrow for slow delivery of drugs when necessary; “by completion of the laboratory experiments, the industrial production of the nanocomposite paste would help in orthopedic surgical operations to repair the defected bones, tumor and cyst removal, and treatment of fractures,” he added.
“Using osteoid structures have gained popularity in recent years; injectable pastes are examples of material applications in the tissue engineering; the injectable paste developed in the study is biocompatible and is made of bioactive glass and sodium alginate polymer,” Hesaraki told reporters.
“However, there is some difficulties associated with injectable pastes; they should be injectable in forces enough to rule out the possibility of phase difference between powder phase and liquid phase; the major downside of the system is that the paste disintegrates immediately when in contact with liquids of the body, which force the paste sooner than it could help and participate in bone restructuring; to face this issue, using polymers adds the elasticity of the paste,” he detailed.
“The critical issue in selecting the polymers is that this additive should not have harmful effect on the physiological properties, flow, and injectability of the paste; other difficulty is that they immediately harden, which potentially reduces the functioning time; therefore, the paste should be injected in a relatively short interval before formation of internal structures,” said the researcher. “An attempt has been made in the study to minimize the hardening of the paste; this becomes possible through introduction of bioactive glass into the chemical makeup; so, the sample paste would fill in all damaged bone parts which is difficult to access; rheological properties of the paste are easy to examine, and the added advantage is its cheap finished production cost compared to similar foreign rival pastes,” he told reporters.
Hesaraki also further explained about the upsides of the synthetized sample; “it is highly stable in part of the body with fractures, and it would not move around, or washed out by fluids; physical resistance against body fluids and against disintegration is the third advantage the paste has; additionally, the composition of the paste is capable of bonding into hydroxyapatite (HA) nanoparticles and thus causing a chemical binding to osteoid tissue,” he detailed further.
“Among the paste composition is 5S45 bioactive glass powder and a solution phase of sodium alginate natural polymer; the study examined the rheological properties as viscosity, composite resistance, and injectability,” he added.
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