Bioactive Glass in Bone Tissue Engineering

Bioactive glass has several appealing characteristics as a scaffold material for bone tissue engineering. While silicate bioactive glasses (such as 45S5 glass) have been widely investigated over the last few decades, borate bioactive glasses have been attracting considerable interest recently. Borate bioactive glasses convert faster and more completely to a hydroxyapatite-like material in a simulated body fluid than silicate bioactive glasses, and they have been shown to support faster bone formation and enhance angiogenesis. However, borate bioactive glasses show a more rapid degradation in strength than silicate bioactive glasses when immersed in a simulated body fluid or implanted in vivo. Advances in biomaterials processing have resulted in the creation of bioactive glass scaffolds with compressive strength and elastic modulus values in the range of trabecular to cortical bone. This article provides a review of our recent advances in bioactive glasses for the regeneration of loaded and non-loaded bone.