Abstract
Biocompatibility assays have undergone a revolution from the early tests designed to investigate inertness of materials that were intended to remain within the patient indefinitely. With the increasing use of biodegradable materials and functional materials that actively play a role in the repair process, the complexity of the assays required to analyze their biocompatibility has also increased. This has led to a change in the definition of biocompatibility, with increasing emphasis being placed on tests designed to ensure a material generates the most beneficial tissue response, without any unwanted local or systemic effects. In essence this leads to more assays associated with function. Within this chapter, we aim to highlight the changing definition of biocompatibility and explain the biocompatibility testing process while providing some examples. Various in vivo assays will be described and their benefits and limits will be discussed. Aspects of regulation and standards will be discussed, and differences between the various assays will be explained.
References
Vacanti J, Vacanti CA (2007) Chapter one – the history and scope of tissue engineering. In: Vacanti RLL (ed) Principles of tissue engineering, 3rd edn. Academic, Burlington, pp 3–6
Williams DF (2008) On the mechanisms of biocompatibility. Biomaterials 29:2941–2953
Summary of typical bone-graft substitutes that are commercially available (2010) http://www.aatb.org/aatb/files/ccLibraryFiles/Filename/000000000323/BoneGraftSubstituteTable2010.pdf
Czekanska EM, Stoddart MJ, Richards RG et al (2012) In search of an osteoblast cell model for in vitro research. Eur Cell Mater 24:1–17
Alberts B, Johnson A, Lewis J et al (2007) Molecular biology of the cell. Science, Garland
Stoddart MJ (2011) Cell viability assays: introduction. Methods Mol Biol 740:1–6
Smith EL, Kanczler JM, Oreffo RO (2013) A new take on an old story: chick limb organ culture for skeletal niche development and regenerative medicine evaluation. Eur Cell Mater 26:91–106; discussion 106
Russell WMS, Burch RL (1959) The principles of humane experimental technique. Methuen, London
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Dr. David Eglin, AO Research Institute Davos, for providing the histological example sections. Both authors are supported by the AO Foundation and are part of the EU-FP7-LARGE-Biodesign program to develop novel biomaterials testing algorithms.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this entry
Cite this entry
Stoddart, M.J., Alini, M. (2015). Biocomposites used in Orthopedic Applications: Trends in Biocompatibility Assays. In: Antoniac, I. (eds) Handbook of Bioceramics and Biocomposites. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09230-0_38-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09230-0_38-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-09230-0
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Chemistry and Mat. ScienceReference Module Physical and Materials ScienceReference Module Chemistry, Materials and Physics