Nanotecnologia

Biotecnología

Nanocoating Encourages Bone Growth in Hip Replacements

Hip replacement surgery seems commonplace, what with 1 million Americans receiving the procedure each year. Yet while it mayseem routine at this point, the truth is that 17 percent of patients experience some kind of problem with the implant requiring an earlier than expected replacement.
Now researchers at MIT havedeveloped a nanomaterial that could avoid the need for a large portion of these replacements. The research, which was initially published in the Wiley journal Advanced Materials, was able to create ananocoating that would replace the bone cement typically used in these procedures.

The nanocoating uses hydroxyapatite nanoparticles that not only initially secures the implant to the bone, but alsoencourages faster bone tissue growth. The bone cement currently used, to fix the replacement hip to the femur, can harden to a consistency like glass—and, like glass, sometimes cracks and detaches fromthe implant, leaving the patient in chronic pain.
“Typically, in such a case, the implant is removed and replaced, which causes tremendous secondary tissue loss in the patient,” says Nisarg Shah in anews release by MIT News. Shah is a graduate student in Paula Hammond’s lab (which we previously wrote about in the context of lithium ion batteries) and one of the author’s of the research. “Ouridea is to prevent failure by coating these implants with materials that can induce native bone that is generated within the body. That bone grows into the implant and helps fix it in place.”
Thehydroxyapatite nanoparticles are in fact a natural component of bone and attract mesenchymal stem cells from the bone marrow. The material is also made up of thin layers of other materials that encouragethe mesenchymal stem cells to become bone producing cells known as osteoblasts. Together this mix of materials stimulates the production of bone tissue that fills in the space around the implant....