New Surgical Bone Screws

There’s a new sheriff in town when it comes to orthopedic bone screws says a team of scientists from Germany. For quite a long time, bone screws have been made out of titanium and will often stay in your body for the rest of your life. In those situations titanium bone screws are just fine, however patients will often need to have the bone screws removed after their bodies have fully recovered. The German scientists have claimed to have made biodegradable screws that will simply melt away after a given period of time, and are completely harmless to your body.

This could pave a new way for how orthopedic bone screws and other orthopedic implants are manufactured in the future. It poses quite a challenge for manufacturers, and requires a whole new method and new machinery to manufacture them. However there’s plenty of time to plan, as the bone screws need to pass through a slew of quality and safety tests before they can be widely used around the world.

Bone screws have indeed come a long way, as prior to their invention it was incredibly difficult to fix a variety of bone fractures, and patients would never fully recover or the bone would heal incorrectly. Bone screws hold bones and everything else together and give the patient much more freedom to move around and recover as naturally and quickly as possible.

Sources:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27083_3-10461572-247.html

http://www.autocam-medical.com/products/orthopedic-implants/orthopedic-bone-screws/

http://www.gizmag.com/biodegradable-screw/14591/