Guided bone regeneration is a vital component of the recovery process following dental surgery
and various implant-related procedures. This technique improves a patient’s recovery by
strategically placing physical barrier membranes to surround the recovering area in question.
The properties of these barriers allow them to prevent the migration of incorrect cell tissues to
the injury site -- which, if left unattended, can slow the recovery process and introduce
complications for the patient. To avoid this, these membrane barriers ‘guide’ the recovery
process by blocking out cells that should not be at the injury site, resulting in a recovery process
that is both faster and leads to better end results for the patient.
Current barrier membranes available on the market are mainly non-resorbable into the body,
meaning that they must be surgically removed after they have been fully used. This creates the
potential for additional soft tissue-related complications to be introduced in the patient after
removal.
Recent advances in electrospinning technology have created a novel solution to address the
problem of surgical barrier membrane removal: resorbable membranes. Recent studies have
concluded that the combination of polymeric matrices created from PCL and Bioglasses with
bisphosphonate drugs such as ibandronate and alendronate have resulted in increased rates of
bone regeneration compared to the use of solely bioglass. This development greatly increases
the potential for resorbable membranes to be used on patients in the near future because it has
overcome the inconvenient solubility of bisphosphonate drugs when paired with biodegradable
polymers. This will allow this class of drugs for bone regeneration to be paired with bioerodible
electrospun polymers, which had previously proven to be a difficult task. The increased rate of
bone formation shown with the use of this technology gives it a promising potential to improve
the recovery processes of patients post oral surgery -- such as root canal regeneration -- and in
patients suffering from bone injuries.
References:
Berton, F., Porrelli, D., Di Lenarda, R., & Turco, G. (2019). A critical review on the production of
electrospun nanofibres for guided bone regeneration in oral surgery. Nanomaterials,
10(1), 16. https://doi.org/10.3390/nano10010016
Terzopoulou, Z., Baciu, D., Gounari, E., Steriotis, T., Charalambopoulou, G., Tzetzis, D., &
Bikiaris, D. (2019). Composite membranes of poly(ε-caprolactone) with
bisphosphonate-loaded bioactive glasses for potential bone tissue engineering
applications. Molecules, 24(17), 3067. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules24173067
댓글