Bioceramics: From Bone Regeneration to Cancer Nanomedicine

Abstract

Research on biomaterials has been growing in the last few years due to the clinical needs in organs and tissues replacement and regeneration. In addition, cancer nanomedicine has recently appeared as an effective means to combine nanotechnology developments towards a clinical application. Ceramic materials are suitable candidates to be used in the manufacturing of bone-like scaffolds. Bioceramic materials may also be designed to deliver biologically active substances aimed at repairing, maintaining, restoring or improving the function of organs and tissues in the organism. Several materials such as calcium phosphates, glasses and glass ceramics able to load and subsequently release in a controlled fashion drugs, hormones, growth factors, peptides or nucleic acids have been developed. In particular, to prevent post surgical infections bioceramics may be surface modified and loaded with certain antibiotics, thus preventing the formation of bacterial biofilms. Remarkably, mesoporous bioactive glasses have shown excellent characteristics as drug carrying bone regeneration materials. These bioceramics are not only osteoconductive and osteoproductive, but also osteoinductive, and have therefore been proposed as ideal components for the fabrication of scaffolds for bone tissue engineering. A recent promising development of bioceramic materials is related to the design of magnetic mediators against tumors. Magnetic composites are suitable thermoseeds for cancer treatment by hyperthermia. Moreover, magnetic nanomaterials offer a wide range of possibilities for diagnosis and therapy. These nanoparticles may be conjugated with therapeutic agents and heat the surrounding tissue under the action of alternating magnetic fields, enabling hyperthermia of cancer as an effective adjunct to chemotherapy regimens.

Parathyroid hormone-related protein (107-111) improves the bone regeneration potential of gelatin–glutaraldehyde biopolymer-coated hydroxyapatite

“…Different types of ceramics have been widely used in this respect, because of their similarity with the mineral component of natural bone [5,6]. Current interest is focused on bioactive and biodegradable bioceramics as scaffolds exhibiting suitable osteointegration and osteoconductive features in bone tissue engineering applica-tions [7,8].…”

Molecular, Cellular and Pharmaceutical Aspects of Synthetic Hydroxyapatite Bone Substitutes for Oral and Maxillofacial Grafting

“…As already mentioned, sHAs and especially nano-structured HAs are excellent drug carriers, and may not only be used to carry osteogenic or angiogenic growth factors, but also drugs, e.g. with antibacterial effects [11,14,82,[117][118][119][120]. For discussion on antibiotic release from CaP materials see also the article of Prados-Frutos et al in this issue.…”

“…For the clinician, an easy handling, shaping and application will be important. In the context of bone tissue engineering, the development of complex 3D scaffolds made from HA materials is of great interest [14,76].…”

“…There are also composites available, which combine sHAs with other biomaterials, e.g. TCPs or polymers [11,[13][14][15][16]. Interestingly, there is a relatively strict division of commercially available products for oral and maxillofacial surgery and for trauma and reconstructive surgery and orthopedics, although many products are identical, [5,17].…”

Hyperthermia‐Induced Drug Delivery from Thermosensitive Liposomes Encapsulated in an Injectable Hydrogel for Local Chemotherapy

“…On this basis, researchers have developed different materials for achieving both spatial and temporal effective release of the active molecule at the therapeutic target. [1][2][3][4] Among these materials, the locoregional administration of drug-loaded, in situ gelling hydrogels overcomes the pharmacokinetic restrictions of intravenous injection and effectively enhances the therapeutic ratio. [5,6] Following this principle, the present work describes the design of a composite material which enables a thermally triggered and localized release of a chemotherapeutic (doxorubicin), achievable through incorporation of drug-loaded thermosensitive liposomes in a thermoresponsive chitosan/β-glycerophosphate (C/β-GP) hydrogel for local treatment.…”