Development of osteoblast colonies on new bioactive coatings

The aging baby boomer population coupled with an increase in life expectancy is leading to a rising number of active elderly persons in occidental countries. As a result, the orthopedic implant industry is facing numerous challenges such as the need to extend implant life, reduce the incidence of revision surgery, and improve implant performance. This paper reports results of an investigation on the bioperformance of newly developed coating-substrate systems. Hydroxyapatite (HA) and nano-titania (nano-TiO\u2082) coatings were produced on Ti-6Al-4V and fiber reinforced polymer composite substrates. In vitro studies were conducted to determine the capacity of bioactive coatings developed to sustain osteoblast cells (fetal rat calvaria) adherence, growth, and differentiation. As revealed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) observations and alkaline phosphatase activity, cell adhesion and proliferation demonstrated that HA coatings over a polymer composite are at least as good as HAcoatings made over Ti-6Al-4V substrate in terms of osteoblast cell activity. Nano-TiO\u2082 coatings produced by high-velocity oxyfuel (HVOF) spraying led to different results. For short-term cell culture (4.5 and 24 h), the osteoblasts appeared more flattened when grown on nano-TiO\u2082 than on HA. The surface cell coverage after seven days of incubation was also more complete on nano-TiO\u2082 than HA. Preliminary results indicate that osteoblast activity after 15 days of incubation on nano-TiO\u2082 is equivalent to or greater than that observed on HA.Peer reviewed: YesNRC publication: Ye