Scanning electron image analysis to monitor of implant degradation and host healing following implantation of a drug-eluting bone graft void filler - biomed 2013.

Osteomyelitis is most commonly caused by Staphylococcus aureus and often sourced during orthopedic surgical intervention. Successful treatment or prevention of this bone penetrating infection requires antibiotics be delivered in excess of the minimal inhibitory concentration to prohibit the growth of the causative organism for sufficient duration. Unfortunately, current standard-of-care antibiotic therapies, administered via intravenous or oral delivery, suffer not only from systemic toxicity and low patient compliance but also provide insufficient local concentrations for therapy. To overcome these clinical inadequacies, a synthetic bone graft material was coated with an antibiotic (tobramycin)-releasing polymer (polycaprolactone) matrix to create a polymer-controlled antibiotic- releasing combination therapy for use as a bone void filler in orthopedic surgeries. Even though this local delivery strategy allows antibiotic delivery over a clinically relevant time frame to prevent infection, complete healing requires the host bone to infiltrate and reabsorb the bone void filler, ultimately replacing the defect with healthy tissue. Unfortunately, the same polymer matrix that allows for controlled local antibiotic delivery may also discourage host bone healing. Efficient orthopedic healing requires the rate of polymer degradation to match the rate of host-bone infiltration. Current imaging techniques, such as histological staining and x-ray imaging, are insufficient to simultaneously assess polymer degradation and host bone integration. Alternative techniques relying on backscatter electron detection during scanning electron microscopy (SEM) imaging may allow a visual differentiation between host bone, synthetic bone, and polymer. Analysis of backscattered SEM images was automated using a custom MATLAB program to determine the ratio of bone to polymer based upon the contrast between the bone (white) and polymer (dark grey). By collecting images of the implant over time, a profile could be created to describe the rate of polymer degradation in conjunction with host-bone infiltration, allowing the intelligent tailoring of infectious osteomyelitis treatment/prevention and host-graft integration.