Bone fracturing is among the most common health issues, mostly originated from osteoporosis and traumatic fractures [1]. In 2017, bone-fractures in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands (EU 6) had an associated annual cost of €37.5 billion and a loss of 1.0 million quality-adjusted life years, revealing its huge socioeconomic impact [2].
Nowadays, an approach to treat those traumas often involves the use of permanent metallic implants, which frequently result in other complications later on. In this way, tissue engineering (TE) emerged as the most promising strategy to promote bone regeneration [3,4]. The introduction of additive manufacturing (AM) techniques in bone TE has opened the possibility of customizing scaffolds according to specific patients and defect sites [5] through the integration with medical imaging [6]. Although polymers possess good plasticity and biocompatibility, their low strength compared to bone mechanical performance, poor wettability, and aseptic inflammation risk restrict their applications in hard tissue repair [7]. Thus, the combination of polymers with metals appears as an attractive solution since they present a more similar behaviour to the native bone. Magnesium based alloys are considered as a third-generation biomaterials (bioactive, biodegradable, and bio-tolerant) for TE as they can act as temporary structures for tissue regeneration and, eventually, degrade completely in a biological medium [8].
With this work, we intend to present our preliminary studies concerning the AM of biodegradable scaffolds. For that purpose, we propose to manufacture composite scaffolds of magnesium with poly-ε-caprolactone to improve the hydrophilicity and degradation rates of the latter while also maximizing their mechanical performance.
Author Contributions
Conceptualization, J.T.C., C.P., C.M. and N.A.; methodology, J.T.C., C.P. and C.M.; investigation, J.T.C., J.C., R.M. and C.M.; writing—original draft preparation, J.T.C. and C.M.; writing—review and editing, J.T.C. and C.M.; supervision, J.T.C., C.P. and C.M. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding
This research was funded by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC) through the following Projects: UIDB/04044/2020; UIDP/04044/2020; Associate Laboratory ARISE LA/P/0112/2020; PAMI—ROTEIRO/0328/2013 (No. 022158).
Institutional Review Board Statement
Not applicable.
Informed Consent Statement
Not applicable.
Data Availability Statement
Not applicable.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
References
- Melcova, V.; Svoradová, K.; Menčík, P.; Kontárová, S.; Rampichová, M.; Hedvičáková, V.; Sovková, V.; Přikryl, R.; Vojtová, L. FDM 3D Printed Composites for Bone Tissue Engineering Based on Plasticized Poly(3-hydroxybutyrate)/poly(d,l-lactide) Blends. Polymers 2020, 12, 2806. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
- Borgstrom, F.; Karlsson, L.; Ortsäter, G.; Norton, N.; Halbout, P.; Cooper, C.; Lorentzon, M.; McCloskey, E.V.; Harvey, N.C.; Javaid, M.K.; et al. Fragility fractures in Europe: Burden, management and opportunities. Arch Osteoporos. 2020, 15, 59. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed] [Green Version]
- Fernandes, C.; Moura, C.; Ascenso, R.M.; Amado, S.; Alves, N.; Pascoal-Faria, P. Comprehensive Review on Full Bone Regeneration through 3D Printing Approaches. In Design and Manufacturing; Yasa, E., Mhadhbi, M., Santecchia, E., Eds.; IntechOpen: London, UK, 2020. [Google Scholar]
- Pina, S.; Ribeiro, V.P.; Marques, C.F.; Maia, F.R.; Silva, T.H.; Reis, R.L.; Oliveira, J.M. Scaffolding strategies for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications. Materials 2019, 12, 1824. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed] [Green Version]
- Tamay, D.G.; Usal, T.D.; Alagoz, A.S.; Yucel, D.; Hasirci, N.; Hasirci, V. 3D and 4D printing of polymers for tissue engineering applications. Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol. 2019, 7, 164. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
- Olaret, E.; Stancu, I.C.; Iovu, H.; Serafim, A. Computed Tomography as a Characterization Tool for Engineered Scaffolds with Biomedical Applications. Materials 2021, 14, 6763. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
- Sezer, N.; Evis, Z.; Koç, M. Additive manufacturing of biodegradable magnesium implants and scaffolds: Review of the recent advances and research trends. J. Magnes. Alloys 2021, 9, 392. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Rahman, M.; Dutta, N.K.; Choudhury, N.R. Magnesium alloys with tunable interfaces as bone implant materials. Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol. 2020, 8, 564. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. |
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).