Bond strength of biodegradable bone adhesive for maxillofacial reconstructive surgery: a comparative in vitro study

Nowadays adhesives are in daily use in medicine. Structures present in the human body can be repaired by means of adhesives. These applications include setting osteochondral fragments, tears of tendons and ligaments, as hemostatic and medium surgeries, facial ear, or surgery of the larynx or trachea [1].
A new promising application seems to be the use of adhesive systems for internal fixation, which have already been described in numerous studies "in vitro" and "in vivo" [2,3]. According to these studies it can be concluded that the adhesives could be a useful and less invasive approach in the union of bony parts [2].
Therefore, the use of adhesives in orthopedic and reconstructive surgery is a very interesting technique for joining bone fragments due to it provides several advantages when compared with mechanical fasteners such as staples or screws [4], especially in traumatic fractures of the face and skull with presence of fragments hard to join with precision by means of the abovementioned methods. [5].
In this study, a biodegradable and osteoconductive adhesive has been formulated and compared with a commercial biocompatible adhesive derived from castor oil, an ethyl -2-cyanoacrylate adhesive and a poly(methyl methacrylate) bone cement. Tensile and shear tests have been used to evaluate the adhesion properties of these adhesives after exposure to a wet and 37 ºC environment.