Silver Honeycomb Scaffolds - for Infection Control & Bone Healing
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Bees win again! - Honeycomb scaffolds are promising - #NeoArmory:
Did you know? Hexagon is the most efficient way to use minimal structural material for maximum strength while maintaining the most volume.
So, some researchers thought to combine that with our well-known Bug buster- Silver ion. Macropores on Carbonate apatite provide honeycomb scaffolds; cooking this in a Silver Phosphate bath (like literally) provides silver-coated honeycomb scaffolds.
Why Honeycomb you ask? Well, they allow free flow of blood through them; so no stagnation means minimal chance of colonization. When the silver content was 9.9 × 10-4 wt %, the honeycomb scaffolds showed antibacterial activity without cytotoxicity and allowed cell proliferation, differentiation, and mineralization. Furthermore, the antibacterial honeycomb scaffolds perfectly prevented bacterial infection in vivo in the presence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, formed new bone at 2 weeks after surgery, and were gradually replaced with a new bone. This is in a very experimental stage but shows lots of promise with the management of infection in orthopedics. Follow this space for further updates in this area.
