Thirty-five years of guided tissue engineering

In 1971 Professor Larry L. Hench and his co-workers published a paper on the bonding mechanism of living tissue to glass. This started a progressively expanding research on materials acting as temporary substrates for reinforcing damaged tissue. The most frequent materials are glasses and glass-ceramics with silica content of only 45–55 wt% and roughly equal amounts of alkali and alkaline earth, i.e. glasses that dissolve soon after having guided new tissue growth. The glass is used in form of crushed powder, micro spheres, fibers, etc. and is prepared either by conventional melting or via solgel routes. During the past 35 years glass and glass-ceramics have been used for tissue guiding in filling bone cavities, in treating frontal sinus infections, in repair of damaged suborbital ocular rims, in dentistry for treating infected bifurcation, etc. In surgery applications are expected for fabrics made from glass fibers alone or in combination with bioactive polymer fibers. The paper is limited to silicate based, high-temperature prepared materials.