Current and Emerging Bioresorbable Metallic Scaffolds: An Insight into Their Development, Processing and Characterisation

Abstract

Solid metals and their alloys have been widely used for synthesis and fabrication of the implants and stents replacing human tissues
or their functions for a quite a long time. However, in recent years, the
advent of bioresorbable metallic materials have played an important role
in biomedical applications. Scaffolds have been utilized in tissue regeneration to facilitate the formation and growth of new tissues or organs
where a balance between temporary mechanical support and mass
transport (degradation and cell growth) is ideally achieved. Bioresorbable metallic scaffolds are designed to reduce adverse events related
to permanent metallic implants by providing temporary mechanical support and subsequent complete resorption. In view of the importance of
emerging bioresorbable biomaterials, a brief review about development,
processing and characterisation of bioresorbable metallic scaffolds is
presented here. Focus is placed on metals/alloys as material for scaffold
preparation. First, fundamental aspects about biomaterials and metallic
materials and their considerations related to scaffold development are
established. Second, processing/fabrication methods of these materials
are described and fnally characterisation methods to establish suitability of scaffolds are presented.