Abstract:

BACKGROUND: A lot of metal scaffolds have been applied in human body, some materials have shortcomings, but medical porous tantalum exhibited steady properties for clinical and scientific research, it is increasingly becoming a new development direction for bone tissue engineering.
OBJECTIVE: To review the structural characteristics, mechanical properties, biological characteristics and the application of porous tantalum in knee joint injuries.
METHODS: Chinese Journal Full-text and Pubmed databases from December 1955 to January 2010 were searched on computer by using “porous tantalum, bone tissue engineering, biological material, trabecula metal” in English and Chinese as the key words. Totally 81 literatures were screened out.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Structural characteristics of medical porous tantalum has a three-dimensional porous structure, which is beneficial to osteoblast cell adhesion, differentiation and growth, promoting bone ingrowth; mechanical properties of porous tantalum are close to that of normal bone tissue in the elastic modulus, fatigue resistance and friction coefficient; biological characteristics of porous tantalum showed good biocompatibility, corrosion resistance, capacities of bone induction and regeneration; it has a bright application future in knee injury treatment, but few studies report the application of medical porous tantalum in China and the study was not thorough enough, which need more in-depth study and exploration.