A new glass‐ceramic for bone replacement: Evaluation of its bonding to bone tissue

Abstract

Glass powders (350 mesh) of the composition MgO, 4.6; CaO, 44.9; SiO, 34.2; PO, 16.3; CaF, 0.5 in weight ratio were compacted, heated to 1050°C at a rate of 5°C/ min and kept at 1050°C for 2 h. The resultant glass‐ceramic having oxyapatite, fluoroapatite, and wollastonite crystals showed high bending and compressive strengths of 157 and 1060 MPa, respectively. The biocompatibility and bonding ability of this new glass‐ceramic to the bone tissue was evaluated using rabbit tibial bones, and the failure load to break the bonding of several ceramics (the new glass‐ceramic, dense hydroxyapatite, 45S5 Bioglass, alumina‐ceramic) to bone tissues was measured. The new glass‐ceramic showed tight bonding to bone comparable with dense hydroxyapatite, and in 25 weeks its load was 70% of that of bone tissue. Copyright © 1985 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.