Baino Francesco, Hamzehlou Sepideh, Kargozar Saeid
Institute of Materials Physics and Engineering, Applied Science and Technology Department, Politecnico di Torino, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi 24, 10129 Torino, Italy.
Department of Medical Genetics, School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, 14155-6447 Tehran, Iran.
J Funct Biomater. 2018 Mar 19;9(1):25. doi: 10.3390/jfb9010025.
Bioactive glasses caused a revolution in healthcare and paved the way for modern biomaterial-driven regenerative medicine. The first 45S5 glass composition, invented by Larry Hench fifty years ago, was able to bond to living bone and to stimulate osteogenesis through the release of biologically-active ions. 45S5-based glass products have been successfully implanted in millions of patients worldwide, mainly to repair bone and dental defects and, over the years, many other bioactive glass compositions have been proposed for innovative biomedical applications, such as soft tissue repair and drug delivery. The full potential of bioactive glasses seems still yet to be fulfilled, and many of today's achievements were unthinkable when research began. As a result, the research involving bioactive glasses is highly stimulating and requires a cross-disciplinary collaboration among glass chemists, bioengineers, and clinicians. The present article provides a picture of the current clinical applications of bioactive glasses, and depicts six relevant challenges deserving to be tackled in the near future. We hope that this work can be useful to both early-stage researchers, who are moving with their first steps in the world of bioactive glasses, and experienced scientists, to stimulate discussion about future research and discover new applications for glass in medicine.
生物活性玻璃引发了医疗保健领域的一场革命，为现代生物材料驱动的再生医学铺平了道路。五十年前，拉里·亨奇发明的第一种45S5玻璃成分能够与活骨结合，并通过释放生物活性离子刺激骨生成。基于45S5的玻璃产品已在全球数百万患者身上成功植入，主要用于修复骨和牙齿缺陷，多年来，人们还提出了许多其他生物活性玻璃成分用于创新生物医学应用，如软组织修复和药物递送。生物活性玻璃的全部潜力似乎仍有待实现，而且许多当今的成果在研究开始时是不可想象的。因此，涉及生物活性玻璃的研究极具启发性，需要玻璃化学家、生物工程师和临床医生之间的跨学科合作。本文介绍了生物活性玻璃目前的临床应用情况，并描述了六个在不久的将来值得应对的相关挑战。我们希望这项工作对初涉生物活性玻璃领域的早期研究人员以及经验丰富的科学家都有所帮助，以激发关于未来研究的讨论，并发现玻璃在医学中的新应用。
