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Dissolvable Glass For Bone Repair
gpronger writes "Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones, but Glass Will Certainly Mend Them! The old schoolyard ditty may be changed to reflect developments using metallic glass that will dissolve in situ instead of the traditional stainless steel or titanium hardware, which require removal by surgery once the bone has healed. Physics World reports that researcher Jörg Löffler at ETH Zurich has created an alloy of 60% magnesium, 35% zinc, and 5% calcium, molded in the form of metallic glass. Through rapid cooling, the alloy forms a molecularly amorphous glass that slowly dissolves over time, supporting the injury long enough for healing, then slowly dissolving away."
I doubt the little schoolyard ditty will be changed.
No, really.
Will this mean an end to casts? If this could be put in place and support the bone from the inside while you heal, why would we need external casts? Especially if it's injectable in some way.
I put on my robe and wizard hat..
They call him Mr.Glass
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
My group is cooperating with a startup that makes, among other things, glass microbeads covered with nanoparticles of whose composition I am not allowed to speak. These nanoparticles cause bone cell growth. In fact, they cause stem cell differentiation into osteoblasts, which I think is beyong cool. The glass slowly dissolves in the body and the bone remains. Our hypothesis (backed by some experimental data) is that these beads will restore fractured bones, such as spinal vertebrae, to patients with extreme osteoporosis.
Rarely have I wished success to a company, as in this case. Perhaps seeing my aunt succumb to multiple spinal fractures scared the shit out of me.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
The proper fusion of bone has always depended on the lateral strength of the bracing mechanism. While this does away with the need for painful pins and rods, it still requires the use of casts and other immobilizers. In the case of compound fractures, the bone splinters may be dislodged away from the point of fracture and still need surgery to remove.
Breaking a bone is never a pleasant experience, but rapid healing and non-invasive resetting should make recovery faster and less scarring. This particular advance in recovery medicine should help pave the way for technologies such as tricorder automatic healing and other non-touch healing techniques.
On the battlefield and anywhere where injury risk is very high and away from medical help, this type of at-the-scene treatment can help preserve not just bones and limbs, but lives too.
Kudos to the team for a great job!
Can this be used until the viagra kicks in, and then it dissolves away?
Unlike in a certain X-men movie, this "metallic glass" is NOT going to be injected into living human bodies while molten. It'll be carefully forged in a factory into parts that are currently made out of steel or titanium : various plates, screws, and other orthopedic hardware. For injuries that require surgery, orthopedic surgeons would use these metallic glass parts instead of what they currently use.
The problem is obvious : it's doubtful that this alloy will be as strong as steel or titanium, and so the screws or plates would have to be thicker and heavier to have the same strength. There's an obvious tradeoff : do you make a bigger incision and drill out bigger holes in the bone to use this dissolvable metallic glass, or do you use conventional hardware? Also, undoubtedly there will be decades of debate over whether the trace minerals leached into the body cause harm or not.
Bottom line : even if this technology turns out to be safe and effective and is approved for use, it will probably be decades until it is used most of the time.
Glass is a fluid, not a liquid.
due to metabolic or genetic reasons: stick one of these under the skin with the proper mineral in the mix, and give them a regular slow release dosage without the worry of forgetting
or distribute them to poor areas of the world with mineral deficiencies (assuming the local demagogues don't start babbling about western plots to make muslims infertile)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This sounds like a solid business plan: repair broken bones and weaken others so that they will break soon too, thus ensuring a returning customer!
The FDA and other national regulators of medicine are supposed to protect the people from such business models.
Imagine the Hollywood scripts that could come from this new material. Rather than having adamantium grafted to his skeleton, Wolverine could have had glass grafted instead. Then, rather than being a badass unstoppable killing machine, he could gimp around on a cane fantasizing himself to be a super villain before Bruce Willis discovers himself to be an unlikely super hero with absolutely no backstory who cannot be broken! We can call the movie "A Tale of Two Unbreakables" and make billiions!. Profit!
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
...I don't think it means what you think it means.
Surely "surely" would fit the cadence better than "certainly".
This is why OSS often has such horrible UIs - coders have no rhythm.
So, we have a metal matrix, in an electrolyte solution. Can we use it as a battery?
What a twist!
Veritas patesco per quaestio questio. Truth is revealed through questions.
"Metallic Glass", you say? Can transparent aluminum be far behind?
Glass is an amorphous solid. However, I'm not sure if you were joking. You're a much funnier guy than me.
certain areas of the world are naturally deficient in certain necessary elements, like iodine. other areas are naturally high in certain dangerous elements, like arsenic. it doesn't matter how much good nutrition they get from the foodstuffs of their countryside, it doesn't even matter how rich they are. if the surrounding countryside doesn't have the element (or too much of it), it doesn't have the element (or too much of it). you need a technological response to the problem, regardless of socioeconomics or intent to eat a well-balanced diet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodine_deficiency#Local_impact
"Iodine deficiency has largely been confined to the developing world for several generations, but reductions in salt consumption and changes in dairy processing practices eliminating the use of iodine-based disinfectants have led to increasing prevalence of the condition in Australia and New Zealand in recent years. A proposal to mandate the use of iodized salt in most commercial breadmaking is expected to be adopted in 2009."
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_situ
In biology, in situ means to examine the phenomenon exactly in place where it occurs (i.e. without moving it to some special medium). This usually means something intermediate between in vivo and in vitro. For example, examining a cell within a whole organ intact and under perfusion may be in situ investigation. This would not be in vivo as the donor is sacrificed before experimentation, but it would not be the same as working with the cell alone (a common scenario in in vitro experiments).
That is, the use of the phrase in situ implies that the person is dead. in situ literally means "as it is," and is more synonymous with untampered. In a literal sense, the bone could heal by itself in situ, but with an implant, tampering has already occurred, and the process is actually occurring in vivo, in a live organism. It's a minor quibble, but don't use Latin when you can just say "in place," "without further intervention," or "on its own." These would have been better choices, and clearer because they are plain English.
--
Toro
Spot the English major in this post. :^)
Yeah, as I recall Glass Bones didn't work out too good for him.
Forget this , I am getting my adamatium bondings as soon, as quickly as I can get a few broken bones that would need to be mended.
Glass is a transmorphous metasolid extant in 4-space, but embedded in 3-space.
I like confusing words =)
Dissolvable is the proper spelling. I can be a moderator nao?
First, it's not clear to me that "fluid" and "liquid" have different meanings.
Second, glass is actually a solid. Flowing glass is a persistent, but untrue, urban myth.
I'm surprised nobody commented about the obvious typo in the title !
Gases are also fluids.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid
Due to the non-crystalline molecular structure of glass, it is indeed a fluid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid
Glass bones would probably work out slightly better than already shattered bones.
Hay marge, what happened to the beer I put in the fridge?
I was just sitting there, doing my business, when the john just suddenly disappeared.
Ther were in the underwater aquarium, watching the sharks, when they became involved in a feeding frenzy after the glass partitions ceased partitioning.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Glass is a liquid. Any glassblower and scientist that makes their own labware can tell you this. It has INSANE viscosity.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
For a moment I thought the headline read: "Dissolvable Glass for Boner Repair".
Currently theta testing the prototype "Event Horizon" server-scaled desktop box with a 50 Gigameg of Ram.
You mom is a transmorphous metasolid. Oh snap!!11!
Dissolves into what?
What does dissovable mean? What is the use for having bones that are made of a substance that is dissovable? Are glass bones normally sovable?
"Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will get my boot in your stones."
That's the way it went in practice.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Fluid and liquid have very different meanings. All gases are fluids. Liquids are also fluids. Fluids might be liquid, gas, or solid.
i'm just brainstorming potential other uses for this dissolving glass. i don't understand the basis for your opposition to the idea on nothing other than "food should be nutritious" when clearly in some areas of the world, food alone simply can't deliver proper nutrition and technology is required to give people proper nutrition
its just an idea. there's a million reasons why subdural implants of time release minerals could be unworkable. but your particular reason about medical personnel doesn't fly: poor rural people get vaccinated by travelling medical groups all the time. if they aren't eating artificially dosed foods like their city brethren, a subdural slowly dissolving mineral boost that lasts a year could dramatically improve lives for very little cost
you really think the idea should be discarded out of hand because you believe (erroneously) that food alone is the solution?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"...instead of the traditional stainless steel or titanium hardware, which require removal by surgery once the bone has healed"
I snapped my femur in April and had an 18" titanium rod inserted from the tip to my knee. According to the surgeons and doctors I have seen since, unless my body rejects the rod at some point, it will stay there for life. Maybe I need new doctors but they certainly made it seem like common place to leave these rods in as long as there are no complications.
Ten years down the line the recipients will have an easier time going through airport security than those with metal permanently implanted!!!
As in Transparent Aluminum? sorry about the Star Trek reference, but that was the first thing I saw when I read this. I do find it interesting that another concept from a Sci-Fi show is being made real. Anti-grav would be nice, transporters? well, I wouldn't trust a machine to put my molecules back in the correct places.
You'll notice the choice of metals: calcium, magnesium, and zinc are all things your body needs in non-trace quantities, and is capable of regulating the level of.
Good observation.
And I'm sure they'll refine the zinc enough to get all the cadmium out of it. (All but a trace too small to matter, of course. Say: levels far below the levels that would pass the intestinal barrier from a comparable amount of an oral zinc supplement.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Well, if they just happened to own a car company they might reconsider such business models.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
well, I wouldn't trust a machine to put my molecules back in the correct places.
What's the fun in that? So long as it can be done twice, I think a nice pair of jugs would be fun to try on for a day...
If this "glass" scaffolding dissolves slowly, I'm guessing it would start out strong and get structurally weaker over time as it thins out. At some point before it is totally dissolved, it will probably be really brittle. Since it is glass-like, I'm guessing that it's possible that it could shatter even though the bone it's attached to has healed and is stronger (imagine a transverse shaking force applied to the bone like you might get when you trip and fall on the ground).
If the scaffolding does shatter and the pieces that shatter are sharp, it seems to me that bad things could happen (in constrast a titanium rod that doesn't dissolve over time wouldn't have a similar shattering risk).
Glass is a liquid. Any glassblower and scientist that makes their own labware can tell you this. It has INSANE viscosity.
Then what's the difference between a liquid and solid?
I engineer orthopaedic implants, and one of the things that is very interesting when considering design and excecution of implants is the culture of the physicians who will be using them.
Physicians who train in different countries (or time periods for that matter) have various preferences on what approaches they use and how they utilize certain devices. What is interesting about this case is that European surgeons are more likely to take hardware OUT of the patient after the fracture is resolved.
This is in contrast to US surgeons who tend to leave everything IN, supposedly to minimise the risk of second surgical exposure. Which technique is correct is up for debate, due to issues like infection rates and stress shielding, but this technology allows the best of both worlds.
This would not replace casting, for reasons mentioned above, but also because casting alone is only used on non-displaced fractures (or displace fractures that can be easily be aligned again).
Of even more interest is the mechanical characteristics of this material. Fracture plates that have moduli closer to bone don't produce as much stress sheilding, which causes the load path to run primarily through the plate and not the bone. Though this sounds like a good idea, bone relies on strain (which it sees due to stress applied and young's modulus) to signal bone remodeling. Too much shunting of load and the bone atriphies, making it likely to break again. These "absorbable" technologies usually produce a more compliant device, which is good for this. However, there is also the issue of the device breaking down and loosing rigidity before the bone can fully support load.
This idea has been done before, it will be interesting to see how this one pans out.
-The more you learn, the more things you realize you don't know-
Sorry to be pedantic (too much time on /.?), but GP is correct. A compound fracture is one that is poking out of the skin. Not logical, I know.
http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=compound%20fracture
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you are shorter of breath and one day closer to death
If it is to be useful as a biomedical device then perhaps they should demonstrate that it is dissolved and resorbed in vivo.
Dissolvable in situ is ambiguous. We are able to create an in situ environment which will dissolve almost anything. eg. aqua regia.
in vivo is used to indicate within the biological system. in situ only indicates within the solution phase.
The most effective candidates are still those based upon hydroxyapatite (HA) and similar ceramic materials. HA is the natural matrix secreted by osteoblasts. Limitations are related to porosity and the ability of the osteoblasts to move through and remodel the biomedical implant as they would natural bone structure.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
TFS speaks, as if that would mean that the stuff just "vanishes". I bet that's also what the company's marketing department and payed doctors say.
While in fact, I'd bet money that it just goes to the blood stream and then to every part of the body, where it forms new complexes, and lets the patient die 15 years later, as soon as when nobody thinks of is as a reason anymore.
Works for so many other "solutions" it's not even funny, so this would not be an exception.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Solids have definite shape and structure and volume. Glass is amorphous, has no definite shape or structure.
Solids have a melting point. Liquids do not. Glass has no melting point.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
'fluid' just means it flows. like gas or plasma. anything you model using the navier-stokes equation.
Solids have definite shape and structure and volume. Glass is amorphous, has no definite shape or structure.
Solids have a melting point. Liquids do not. Glass has no melting point.
Oh. I stand corrected. Glass clearly is a liquid. I'd better get started on taping up my windows.