Animal experimentation with tooth derived calcium hydroxyapatite based composites as bone-graft substitute...

Calcium Hydroxyapatite (HA) has now been clinically accepted as one of the most important alloplastic bonegraft substitute in the management of oral surgical procedures including periodontal bony defects. HA can be synthetically prepared or derived from natural sources. Among the natural sources bovine bone is common but human source is also used. Of late Calcium Hydroxyapatite has been derived from extracted human tooth source. The present study involves the experiments using different varieties of HA in conjunction with chitosan, a binder, to know it's unique biological behaviour of bone bonding. The experiment was designed using 12(Twelve) New Zealand white rabbits on transcortical drilled hole tibial model and the observation was made under optical and scanning electron microscope. Result showed the osteoconductive and bioactive nature of tooth derived HA and biocompatibility of chitosan. The clinical problem of handling the particulate form of HA can be overcome by using chitosan which when mix with HA can stabilize the particle in surgical sites. This has tremendous clinical applications in dental regenerative surgery.