The Application of Nanotechnology for Implant Drug Release

Abstract

The use of medical implants is a cornerstone of modern medicine. All implants face, however, a number of challenges including infection and infl ammation which cause many of them to fail. In addition, tissue engineering implants must also direct stem cell differentiation and tissue regeneration in order to work properly. These problems may be overcome using drugs that are delivered directly from the implant. For this to work the drugs have to be protected until they have performed their function, their release must be timed with when they are needed, they may have to affect specifi c regions of an implant only and some drugs must be delivered to specifi c sub-cellular locations in certain cells types. This chapter explores how various forms of nanotechnology may be employed to reach these goals and reviews many of the studies that have used nanotechnology for different implant mediated drug release applications.