Biocompatibility of ceramic implants in soft tissue

Abstract

Abstract The degradation and biocompatibility of seveal commercially available glasses, glass‐ceramics, and ceramics have been evaluated in soft tissue. Tissue compatibility was investigated by histological and toxicological determinations. Materials degration was evaluated by weight loss and surface replica electron microscopic techniques. High lead and arsenic‐selenium‐sulfur glasses are found to be unsuitable materials for implantation due to high corrosion and toxicity. Certain borosilicate glasses are also found unacceptable because of severe corrosion. Fused quartz, aluminosilicates, certain borosilicates, alkali resistant glass, soda‐lime glass, titania frit, arsenic trisulfide, lithium and magnesium aluminosilicate, glass‐ceramics, and calcium‐fluorapatite all appear to be well tolerated and seem acceptable for soft tissue implantation on the basis of the present data. Because of the lack of sensitivity of weight change as a parameter to measure low corrosion rates, we have no data on which to estimate the actual corrosion rate. The detailed changes in surface structurte produced during the corrosion process only provide information about the corrosion mechanism and may not be correlated with the corrosion rate. A more sensitive method to study low corrosion rates in glasses may be to use radioactive tracer techniques to measure the loss in radioactivity of glasses when implanted in the peritoneal cavity rather than subcutaneously.