Biomimetic Materials in Spinal Surgery: A Clinical Perspective

The biomaterials designed to replace the bone tissue are indispensible in many medical and surgical fields. Often, spinal surgery requires a large amount of bone tissue for bone fusion so as to obtain a complete and stable correction over time. Autologous grafts are still the gold standard, but their availability is limited. The homologous bone tissue from the bank is a valid alternative, but there are risks related to infectious diseases. The best solution is to have an unlimited amount of “synthetic bone” without the risk of transmissible diseases, but synthetic materials cannot yet replicate the ability of bone tissue to be osteoconductive, osteoinductive, and mechanically resistant. The science of biomaterials is continuously evolving. In the last few years, there has been a progressive improvement of bone substitutes. In the late 1990s, scientists developed some materials designed to reproduce the chemical components of the inorganic matrix of the bone, based using hydroxyapatite. Since then, research has taken major steps forward in the development of artificial materials that are very similar to bone from the biological point of view. The aim was to “deceive” the area around the graft to accept it as its own. This marked the beginning of the era of biomimetic materials, of tissue engineering and of gene therapy