An appropriate scaffold, which provides structural support for transplanted cells and acts as a vehicle for the delivery of biologically active molecules, is critical for tissue engineering. We developed a fully interconnected globular porous biphasic calcium phosphate ceramic scaffold by adopting a foaming method, and evaluated its efficiency as a bone substitute and a scaffold for bone tissue engineering by in vitro and in vivo biocompatible analysis and its osteogenic healing capacity in rat tibial bone defects. They have spherical pores averaging 400um in diameter and interconnecting interpores averaging 70um in diameter with average 85% porosity. They elicited no cytotoxicity and noxious effect on cellular proliferation and osteoblastic differentiation during the cell-scaffold construct formation. Also the bone defects grafted with fully interconnected globular porous biphasic calcium phosphate ceramic blocks revealed excellent bone healing within 3 weeks. These findings suggest that the fully interconnected porous biphasic calcium phosphate scaffold formed by the foaming method can be a promising bone substitute and a scaffold for bone tissue engineering.
Biphasic calcium phosphate as a bone substitute
