Nanotechnology for treating osteoporotic vertebral fractures

Abstract

Osteoporosis is a serious public health problem affecting hundreds of millions of aged people worldwide, with severe consequences including vertebral fractures that are associated with significant morbidity and mortality. To augment or treat osteoporotic vertebral fractures, a number of surgical approaches including minimally invasive vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty have been developed. However, these approaches face problems and difficulties with efficacy and long-term stability. Recent advances and progress in nanotechnology are opening up new opportunities to improve the surgical procedures for treating osteoporotic vertebral fractures. This article reviews the improvements enabled by new nanomaterials and focuses on new injectable biomaterials like bone cements and surgical instruments for treating vertebral fractures. This article also provides an introduction to osteoporotic vertebral fractures and current clinical treatments, along with the rationale and efficacy of utilizing nanomaterials to modify and improve biomaterials or instruments. In addition, perspectives on future trends with injectable bone cements and surgical instruments enhanced by nanotechnology are provided.

Keywords:

• nanomaterials
• osteoporosis
• vertebral fracture
• kyphoplasty
• bone cement
• pedicle screw
• radiopacifier

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Jiangsu Provincial Special Program of Medical Science (BL2012004), the project funded by the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu High Education Institutions, National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program, 2014CB748600), the Jiangsu R&D Innovation Program (BY2014059-07), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51472279), the Jiangsu Six Peak of Talents Program (2013-WSW-056), the Chinese Ministry of Education Star-up Fund for Oversea Scholars, and the Open Fund of State Key Laboratory of Nonlinear Mechanics for supporting this work.

Disclosure

The authors report no conflicts of interest in relation to this work.