Silk Bones
Broken bones were offered to be fastened with silk screws
Copper news based on the materials of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center:
Silk-Based Implants Could Offer A Better Way to Heal Broken BonesA group of specialists from Tufts University School of Engineering and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (USA) has proposed a more natural and safe alternative to metal spokes, pins, staples, screws and plates with which bone fragments are fixed in craniofacial fractures.
They made similar surgical devices from silk fibroin, a protein secreted by the silkworm.
The work was published in the journal Nature Communications (Perrone et al., The use of silk-based devices for fracture fixation).
Metallosteosynthesis, which is indispensable for fractures of the bones of the cranial vault, is accompanied by a number of negative effects. Thus, metal screws and plates used to fix bone fragments can injure tissues due to their rigidity and hardness. In addition, the use of metal implants increases the risk of infection, and in some cases requires repeated surgical intervention to remove them. The use of absorbable devices made of synthetic polymers partially solves the problem, but has its drawbacks – they are more difficult to install than metal ones, in addition, they are associated with an increased risk of inflammatory reactions.
A group led by reconstructive surgery specialists Samuel Lin (Samuel Lin) and biomedical engineering David Kaplan (David Kaplan) has developed fixing surgical devices that are not only easy to implant, improve bone remodeling after injury and have a high level of biocompatibility, but also completely dissolve in the body over time.
To make them, scientists used fibrillar protein secreted by the Bombyx mori silkworm. Products made on the basis of silk fibroin, due to its complex structure, have high strength and flexibility. Unlike metal ones, their mechanical integrity and functionality are not affected by contact with liquids and surrounding tissues, which saves patients from related complications. Other advantages of silk protein include the proximity of its structure to the structure of bone, the preservation of structural stability at high temperature and in other extreme conditions, which makes it possible to sterilize objects made from it.
As Kaplan emphasized, perhaps the most basic advantage of silk is its ability to stabilize and deliver bioactive components, therefore, with the help of silk screws and plates, when such surgical devices enter clinical practice, it will be possible to introduce antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals into injured tissues designed to improve bone recovery and faster healing. In addition, since the material from which the screws are made is inherently permeable to X-rays, this circumstance can facilitate tracking the healing process in the postoperative period.
During testing, 28 silk screws were implanted into the femurs of six laboratory rats. The installation of the devices turned out to be very simple, they remained well fixed in the bone for a control period of two months and demonstrated a high level of biocompatibility and provided bone remodeling.
The authors plan to continue studying the potential of silk surgical devices on larger laboratory animals, and then proceed to the stage of clinical trials. They believe that such devices can be used not only in craniofacial surgery, but also in other bone fractures.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru06.03.2014