In this study, the pull-out forces of recently developed multifunctional bioabsorbable self-reinforced ciprofloxacin-releasing polylactide/polyglycolide (SR-PLGA+AB) 80/20 tacks were compared with plain SR-PLGA 80/20 tacks in human cadaver parietal bones. Pieces of parietal bone (approximately 6 x 20 cm) were harvested from 5 human cadavers (all were male, 29-77 years old). Fifty plain SR-PLGA tacks (diameter, 2.0 mm; length, 6.0 mm) and 50 ciprofloxacin-releasing SR-PLGA tacks of similar dimensions were applied to drill holes using a special tack shooter without tapping the drill holes. The force needed to pull the tacks from human parietal cadaver bones was measured using a universal tensile-testing machine, by tack pull-out speed of 10 mm/min. Means and SDs were calculated and analyzed using Student's t-test (SPSS version 10.0 for Windows). The pull-out forces of the ciprofloxacin-releasing and plain tacks were 147.0 +/- 5.94 and 141.4 +/- 8.97 N respectively (P = 0.14, statistically insignificant difference between the 2 groups). The cause of failure in all cases was barb breakage. Ciprofloxacin-releasing SR-PLGA 80/20 tacks seem to have a similar holding power to cranial bone as plain SR-PLGA (80/20) tacks but have additional advantage of ciprofloxacin release.