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Italians Perform Groundbreaking Full Jaw Transplant
statikuz writes "According to BBC News, Italian surgeons have performed the world's first complete jaw transplant. In eleven hours, the surgeons replaced a man's cancer-ridden jaw with a bone from a deceased donor; the donated jawbone was sterlized and stored at -196C to fight rejection, and "The current patient is said to be doing well.", says Professor Giuseppe Spriano, leader of the surgery team at the Regina Elena hospital in Rome."
We're not that good at building implants yet. The human body is a rather hostile environment, really; bone has the advantage that it is continuously repaired.
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Exactly; Ti and other compounds need special treatment at the attachment points, while 'dead' bone still provides a better connective matrix, most likely.
There was progress in using (dead, sterilized) coral for similar reasons, IIRC. However, dead people are likely less of an endangered resource, and already come in the rough shape you'd want.
Why does a jawbone need to be organic? Couldn't an artificial one be made of titanium or something?
It can. My dentist was installing metal (I think titanium) jaw part replacements into guys wounded in Vietnam. The problem is that the thermal and mechaincal properties of bone and titanium (or any metal) are very different. This leads to a lot of pain with slight temperature changes, mechanical shock like chewing, and so on. It's best to replace body parts using materials that are as similar as possible to the original. You can't get much closer that bone-for-bone.