Surface modification of nano-silica on the ligament advanced reinforcement system for accelerated bone formation: primary human osteoblasts testing in vitro and animal testing in vivo.

The Ligament Advanced Reinforcement System (LARS) has been considered as a promising graft for ligament reconstruction. To improve its biocompatibility and effectiveness on new bone formation, we modified the surface of a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) ligament with nanoscale silica using atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) and silica polymerization. The modified ligament is tested by both in vitro and in vivo experiments. Human osteoblast testing in vitro exhibits an ∼21% higher value in cell viability for silica-modified grafts compared with original grafts. Animal testing in vivo shows that there is new formed bone in the case of a nanoscale silica-coated ligament. These results demonstrate that our approach for nanoscale silica surface modification on LARS could be potentially applied for ligament reconstruction.

[Application of the third generation cementing technique in total hip anthroplasty].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of the third generation cementing technique in total hip anthroplasty (THA). METHODS: The clinical data of THA performed on 107 hips in 90 patients suffering from different kinds of orthopedic diseases, 54 males and 36 females, with an average age of 55 years and the average follow-up period of 36 months, were analyzed. RESULTS: According to the Harris scoring system, the 90 patients achieved a score of 34 (range 4 - 78) before the operation and achieved a score of 91 (range 64 - 100) after the operation. 97.1% of the patients showed good or excellent results during the short-term follow-up. CONCLUSION: The third generation cementing technique is rather effective in total hip anthroplasty.

Culturing primary human osteoblasts on electrospun poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) and poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid)/nanohydroxyapatite scaffolds for bone tissue engineering.

In this work, we fabricated polymeric fibrous scaffolds for bone tissue engineering using primary human osteoblasts (HOB) as the model cell. By employing one simple approach, electrospinning, we produced poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) scaffolds with different topographies including microspheres, beaded fibers, and uniform fibers, as well as the PLGA/nanohydroxyapatite (nano-HA) composite scaffold. The bone-bonding ability of electrospun scaffolds was investigated by using simulated body fluid (SBF) solution, and the nano-HA in PLGA/nano-HA composite scaffold can significantly enhance the formation of the bonelike apatites. Furthermore, we carried out in vitro experiments to test the performance of electrospun scaffolds by utilizing both mouse preosteoblast cell line (MC 3T3 E1) and HOB. Results including cell viability, alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity, and osteocalcin concentration demonstrated that the PLGA/nano-HA fibers can promote the proliferation of HOB efficiently, indicating that it is a promising scaffold for human bone repair.