Bone cement

Note 1: In situ self-curing can be the source of released reagentsthat can cause local and/or systemic toxicity as in the case of themonomer released from methacrylics-based bone cement used in orthopedic surgery.Bone cements have been used very successfully to anchor artificial joints (hip joints, knee joints, shoulder and elbow joints) for more than half a century. Artificial joints (referred to as prostheses) are anchored with bone cement. The bone cement fills the free space between the prosthesis and the bone and plays the important role of an elastic zone. This is necessary because the human hip is acted on by approximately 10-12 times the body weight and therefore the bone cement must absorb the forces acting on the hips to ensure that the artificial implant remains in place over the long term. Bone cements have been used very successfully to anchor artificial joints (hip joints, knee joints, shoulder and elbow joints) for more than half a century. Artificial joints (referred to as prostheses) are anchored with bone cement. The bone cement fills the free space between the prosthesis and the bone and plays the important role of an elastic zone. This is necessary because the human hip is acted on by approximately 10-12 times the body weight and therefore the bone cement must absorb the forces acting on the hips to ensure that the artificial implant remains in place over the long term. Bone cement chemically is nothing more than Plexiglas (i.e. polymethyl methacrylate or PMMA). PMMA was used clinically for the first time in the 1940s in plastic surgery to close gaps in the skull. Comprehensive clinical tests of the compatibility of bone cements with the body were conducted before their use in surgery. The excellent tissue compatibility of PMMA allowed bone cements to be used for anchorage of head prostheses in the 1950s. Today several million procedures of this type are conducted every year all over the world and more than half of them routinely use bone cements - and the proportion is increasing. Bone cement is considered a reliable anchorage material with its ease of use in clinical practice and particularly because of its proven long survival rate with cemented-in prostheses. Hip and knee registers for artificial joint replacements such as those in Sweden and Norway clearly demonstrate the advantages of cemented-in anchorage. A similar register for endoprosthesis was introduced in Germany in 2010. Bone cements are provided as two-component materials. Bone cements consist of a powder (i.e., pre-polymerized PMMA and or PMMA or MMA co-polymer beads and or amorphous powder, radio-opacifer, initiator) and a liquid (MMA monomer, stabilizer, inhibitor). The two components are mixed and a free radical polymerization occurs of the monomer when the initiator is mixed with the accelerator. The bone cement viscosity changes over time from a runny liquid into a dough like state that can be safely applied and then finally hardens into solid hardened material. The set time can be tailored to help the physician safely apply the bone cement into the bone bed to either anchor metal or plastic prosthetic device to bone or used alone in the spine to treat osteoporotic compression fractures. During the exothermic free-radical polymerization process, the cement heats up. This polymerization heat reaches temperatures of around 82-86 °C in the body. This temperature is higher than the critical level for protein denaturation in the body. The cause of the low polymerization temperature in the body is the relatively thin cement coating, which should not exceed 5 mm, and the temperature dissipation via the large prosthesis surface and the flow of blood. The individual components of the bone cement are also known in the area of dental filler materials. Acrylate-based plastics are also used in these applications. While the individual components are not always perfectly safe as pharmaceutical additives and active substances per se, as bone cement the individual substances are either converted or fully enclosed in the cement matrix during the polymerization phase from the increase in viscosity to curing. From current knowledge, cured bone cement can now be classified as safe, as originally demonstrated during the early studies on compatibility with the body conducted in the 1950s. More recently bone cement has been use in the spine in either vertebroplasty or kyphoplasty procedures. The composition of these types of cement is mostly based on calcium phosphate and more recently magnesium phosphate. A novel biodegradable, non-exothermic, self-setting orthopedic cement composition based on amorphous magnesium phosphate (AMP) was developed. The occurrence of undesirable exothermic reactions was avoided through using AMP as the solid precursor What is referred to as bone cement implantation syndrome (BCIS) is described in the literature. For a long time it was believed that the incompletely converted monomer released from bone cement was the cause of circulation reactions and embolism. However, it is now known that this monomer (residual monomer) is metabolized by the respiratory chain and split into carbon dioxide and water and excreted. Embolisms can always occur during anchorage of artificial joints when material is inserted into the previously cleared femoral canal. The result is intramedullary pressure increase, potentially driving fat into the circulation.