Hydroxyapatite cement, a smart biomaterial for craniofacial skeletal tissue engineering

Craniofacial skeletal surgery continues to command special interest from patients and clinicians dealing with skeletal defects. Autologous bone grafts remain the standard treatment by which bone substitutes are compared. A continued interest in avoiding donor sites and realizing "off the shelf convenience" has fostered the use of biomaterial bone substitutes. The first generation of implant materials used for cranial reconstruction were not specifically designed for biomedical applications. Methylmethacrylate was adopted for cranial applications after use in implant fixation for hip arthroplasty by Charnley, The development of this material did not employ sophisticated implant evaluation and mainly focused on standard mechanical properties demonstrated on the benchtop.