Addressing a major problem. Considering the growing population, an increasing number of severe bone fracture cases can be foreseen worldwide. Severe fractures are typically fixated with rigid metal or polymer implants, which have an excellent mechanical strength but also a great number of limitations, such as the need for drilling on the bone, the use of open surgery with general anesthesia, or the common occurrence of post-operative complications. In any case, such treatments come with heavy socioeconomic costs, in the form of physical and mental stress for patients, prolonged hospital stays and an increased economic burden on society.
State-of-the-art solutions. To replace the current gold standard metal-based implant with a polymer-based bone adhesive, a number of critical requirements appear, such as an excellent cytocompatibility and adhesion to both wet and dry surfaces among others. Unfortunately, all medically approved soft-tissue and dental adhesives are all promising bone adhesives that have failed one or several of the above mentioned criteria. A promising alternative is the Fiber Reinforced Adhesive Patch reported by Malkoch and coworkers (WO 2011048077 A2 20110428). Nevertheless, several challenges were ahead of this technology in order to become a real alternative to metal-based implants, such as the unmet adhesion strength to wet bone, the high intensity UV source and the medically questionable E-glass fibres.
Objectives of the project. The main objective of DendroBAP project was to overcome fundamental obstacles in the treatment of complicated bone fractures by cementing a ground-breaking concept in fracture fixation: Bone Adhesive Patches (BAPs). The refined patches were foreseen to address the challenges of the state-of-the-art BAPs and become a proof-of-concept for a viable alternative to metal implants in fracture fixation. If successful, a new era of personalized surgery of bone fractures will be unfolded.
Conclusions of the action. The technology developed during the DendroBAP project has overcome current issues on adhesive systems for hard tissue diseases. DendroBAP has enabled a high strength adhesive fixation method functioning in physiologically wet environments such as at the bone surface. The patch components – i) dendritic primer layer, ii) adhesive and iii) fiber selectively and on-demand solidify to BAPs via physiologically benign reactions. The developed patches provided support for the traumatized area within minutes of application, independent of position and complexity of the fracture.
