A new and promising scaffold nanomaterial for orofacial surgery
|Extensive oral bone defects may result from traumas, tumours, infections, or congenital musculoskeletal disorders. Nowadays, reconstruction procedures are based on bone grafts to achieve the full recovery of the subject. The employed materials need to have specific features, such as being biocompatible, capable of inducing the formation of bone-related structures, and bioresorbable. Furthermore, it is desirable that the employed material is easy to handle and cost-effective. Currently, commercial inorganic bovine bone xenografts are largely employed in oral surgery. However, there is a wide availability of healthy extracted teeth discarded every day, and since they carry a valuable source of stem cells in their pulp, they could effectively serve as permanent teeth grafts.
In a study authored by Dr. Dragica Bulajic (University of Novi Sad), Prof. Branislav Bajkin (University of Novi Sad), and colleagues, with the support of Dr. Aden Hodzic (CERIC-ERIC), scientists were able to produce and characterise a multifunctional nanoparticle scaffold material based on silica and hydroxyapatite. Moreover, scientists evaluated viability on human dental pulp stem cells from healthy deciduous teeth (SHED). Small- and Wide-Angle X-ray Scattering, available at the Austrian CERIC Partner Facility at the Elettra synchrotron in Trieste, was applied to characterise the nanomaterial structure, which displayed excellent biocompatibility performances on SHEDs.
The research was realised in collaboration with the internal CERIC research project Nano-Pharma, led by Dr. Aden Hodzic. Results indicate that using a scaffold nanomaterial based on silica and hydroxyapatite is a viable and promising strategy, paving the way for future biomedical applications, including orofacial surgery.