Iron, while attracting less attention than magnesium and zinc, is still one of the best candidates for biodegradable metal stents thanks its biocompatibility, great elastic moduli and high strength. Due to the low corrosion rate, and thus slow biodegradation, iron stents have still not been put into use. While these problems have still not been fully resolved, many studies have been published that propose different approaches to the issues. This brief overview report summarises the latest developments in the field of biodegradable iron-based stents and presents some techniques that can accelerate their biocorrosion rate. Basic data related to iron metabolism and its biocompatibility, the mechanism of the corrosion process, as well as a critical look at the rate of degradation of iron-based systems obtained by several different methods are included. All this illustrates as the title says, what was done within the topic of biodegradable iron-based materials and what more can be done.

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Porous iron-based scaffolds were prepared by the simple replica method using polyurethane foam as a template and applying the sintering process in a tube furnace. Their surface morphology was characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and phase homogeneity was confirmed using X-ray diffraction (XRD). Corrosion behavior was determined using immersion and potentiodynamic polarization methods in phosphate buffered saline (PBS). The surface energy was calculated by studying the changes of enthalpy of calorimetric immersion. A preliminary biological test was also carried out and was done using the albumin adsorption procedure. Results of our work showed that in using the simple replica method it is possible to obtain iron biomaterial with morphology and mechanical properties almost identical to bones, and possessing adequate wettability, which gives the potential to use this material as biomaterial for scaffolds in orthopedics.

Biodegradable metal systems are the future of modern implantology. This publication describes the preparation of porous iron-based materials using a simple, affordable replica method on a polymeric template. We obtained two iron-based materials with different pore sizes for potential application in cardiac surgery implants. The materials were compared in terms of their corrosion rate (using immersion and electrochemical methods) and their cytotoxic activity (indirect test on three cell lines: mouse L929 fibroblasts, human aortic smooth muscle cells (HAMSC), and human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC)). Our research proved that the material being too porous might have a toxic effect on cell lines due to rapid corrosion.