Effect of porous polycaprolactone beads on bone regeneration: preliminary in vitro and in vivo studies.
BACKGROUND
For the effective bone regeneration with appropriate pathological/physiological properties, a variety of bone fillers have been adapted as a therapeutic treatment. However, the development of ideal bone fillers is still remained as a big challenge in clinical practice. The main aims of this study are i) fabrication of a highly porous PCL beads; and ii) the estimation of the potential use of the porous PCL beads as a bone filler through preliminary animal study.


RESULTS
The porous PCL beads with size range of 53 ~ 600 μm (425 ~ 500 μm dominantly) are fabricated by a spray/precipitation method using a double nozzle spray and PCL solution (in tetraglycol). The PCL beads show highly porous inner pore structure and the pores are interconnected with outer surface pores. For the preliminary animal study, we recognize that the porous PCL bead can induce the new bone formation from the outer surface of bone defect toward the bone marrow cavity through the bead matrix.


CONCLUSIONS
From the preliminary results, we can suggest that the highly porous PCL beads may be a promising candidate as a bone filler (scaffolding matrix) for the effective bone regeneration.
Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Institute of Health Sciences, Gyeongsang National University School of Medicine, Jinju, 660-702 Korea.
June-Ho
JH
Byun
Department of Nanobiomedical Science & BK21 PLUS NBM Global Research Center for Regenerative Medicine, Dankook University, Cheonan, 330-714 Korea.
Han A Reum
HA
Lee
Department of Advanced Materials, Hannam University, Daejeon, 305-811 Korea.
Tae Ho
TH
Kim
Department of Advanced Materials, Hannam University, Daejeon, 305-811 Korea.
Jin Ho
JH
Lee
Department of Nanobiomedical Science & BK21 PLUS NBM Global Research Center for Regenerative Medicine, Dankook University, Cheonan, 330-714 Korea.
Se Heang
SH
Oh
Bone defect; Bone filler; Femur; Polycaprolactone (PCL); Porous bead