Development of new biodegradable alloys for medical applications

Abstract

In surgery, besides the joint replacements that need permanent prosthesis implantation in the human body, there are many other clinical cases, such as bone fracture, cardiovascular diseases, in which the temporary implant materials are needed. The fixation or mechanical support are there temporarily needed during the healing process of the injured or pathological tissue, and after that, the implants accomplish their mission have no longer function in human body. In this case, biodegradable materials are the optimal choice as these materials do their job while healing and a new tissue forming occur and degrade in the human body thereafter. Amorphous alloys based on magnesium and calcium are nowadays a very perspective group of metallic glasses. We have developed composition series of completely new (not published) ternary Ca-Mg-Au biodegradable alloys with attractive properties in terms of possible future applications (density and elastic modulus comparable to human bones, wide supercooled liquid region etc.). Although the rate of their degradation in physiological solutions is still too fast, these ternary alloys will serve as precursors for design of future highly alloyed systems with tuned dissociation rate in human body.