Biomedical Textiles Advance Development Of Orthopedic Implants

Medical device manufacturers are expanding their portfolios with biologically based products for the repair of musculoskeletal defects ranging from bone grafting and fusion, motion-preserving spinal repair, to cartilage repair and ligament and tendon tears. The advances in orthobiologic materials are opening the doors for biomedical textiles to take a more active role in the intensely competitive orthopedic medical device market by offering choice and flexibility in design options.

Fabric structures are advancing the development of orthopedic implants with the necessary mechanical and biologic properties designed in to the textiles to serve as load-sharing scaffolds, minimally invasive containment vessels, or resorbables to facilitate osteoconductive healing.

The design flexibility of woven, knitted or braided textile structures is a major feature device designers are leveraging in orthobiologic device concepts. Textiles are inherently compressible and possess shape transformation qualities, which allow them to be used in minimally invasive delivery applications. Fabrics can also contain varying orientations in the fabric geometry to affect porosity in eliciting tissue in-growth in certain areas while serving as a tissue barrier in others. Polymers, metals and emerging biologic material filaments can be formed into an ordered composite fabric structure using traditional textile forming methods to attain the desired device form and function.