The use of dental and orthopedic implants to treat bone disease has continued to increase to date. The issues associated with implant procedures such as a loose implant resulting from slow integration into the bone tissue (metallosis) or local inflammation at the implant site.
To address these issues, researchers have attempted to coat the implant material with "artificial bone" that has the same composition as the actual human bone. Current coating methods require a synthesis process to manufacture the artificial bone material and a separate coating process, taking a considerable amount of time. The binding between the substrate and the artificial bone coating layer tends to be weak, resulting in damage and failure. Thus, strong coating methods that could be applied to actual patients in a clinical setting are in high demand.
Dr. Hojeong Jeon's research team at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) Center for Biomaterials have developed a ceramic artificial bone coating with three times the adhesion strength. The research team developed a technology to induce artificial bone coating using a single process, cutting downtime dramatically. This technique does not require the synthesize the raw material for artificial bone coating in a separate process, and it is possible to create the coating with a nanosecond laser without any expensive equipment or heat-treatment process.
Dr. Jeon said, "The hydroxyapatite coating method using nanosecond laser is a simple way to induce bioactivity in non-bio-active materials such as titanium and PEEK that are commonly used as biomaterials. I anticipate that it will become a game-changer in that it will have wide applications to diverse medical devices where osseointegration is needed.