Morphological and Structural Study of a Novel Porous Nurse’s A Ceramic with Osteoconductive Properties for Tissue Engineering

The characterization process of a new porous Nurse's A ceramic and the physico chemical nature of the remodeled interface between the implant and the surrounding bone were studied after in vivo implantation. Scaffolds were prepared by a solid-state reaction and implanted in New Zealand rabbits. Animals were sacrificed on days 15, 30, and 60. The porous biomaterial displayed biocompatible, bioresorbable, and osteoconductive capacity. The degradation processes of implants also encouraged osseous tissue ingrowths into the material's pores, and drastically changed the macro- and microstructure of the implants. After 60 healing days, the resorption rates were 52.62% ± 1.12% for the ceramic and 47.38% ± 1.24% for the residual biomaterial. The elemental analysis showed a gradual diffusion of the Ca and Si ions from the materials into the newly forming bone during the biomaterial's resorption process. The energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) analysis of the residual ceramic revealed some particle categories with different mean Ca/P ratios according to size, and indicated various resorption process stages. Since osteoconductive capacity was indicated for this material and bone ingrowth was possible, it could be applied to progressively substitute an implant.