Preparation and Analysis Methods of Bone Ceramic Substitutes

Human bone has an incredible capacity to heal itself, however, in cases of extreme damage, the tissue is unable to do so. Therefore, bone grafts are used to enhance the physiological regeneration. The current gold standard is an autograft but due to the subsequent donor site morbidity and their limited availability, alternative types of grafts are being applied. Aside to allografts and xenografts, alloplastic grafts (synthetic grafts) have been developed and are still under investigation for their potential in the field of bone regeneration for both load-bearing and non-load-bearing defect sites. This chapter covers the most common fabrication techniques for ceramic bone substitute materials in consideration of certain material properties that are matching with the process of bone regeneration. In this context, a focus in the further development of ceramic bone substitutes is to create biomimicking materials. Therefore, characterization is an essential step in the development of a novel bone substitute. This chapter also sheds a light on structural, physical, and chemical characterization methods.