Papers by Author: Bruno Bujoli

Abstract: The integration of drugs and devices is a growing force in the medical industry. The incorporation of pharmaceutical products not only promises to expand the therapeutic scope of device technology but to access combination products whose therapeutic value stem equally from both the structural attributes of the device and the intrinsic therapy of the drug. For example, the orthopedic industry is exploring drug-coated hip, knee and bone reconstruction implants capable of promoting healing as an added therapeutic benefit for device recipients. In this context, the drug is eluted locally, being targeted in a specific site of interest, thus offering a convenient strategy to avoid adverse effects commonly observed for systemic treatments of some diseases, as an additional benefit. In addition, these new technologies are generally well adapted to the development of minimally invasive surgery for their implantation. In this context, given the wide use of calcium phosphates (CaPs) and bisphosphonates (BPs) for the therapy of bone-related affections, there was great interest to investigate the chemistry taking place when combining the two systems since: (i) it could provide better insight in the mechanism of BP fixation on bones (ii) such combination could act as efficient BP delivery systems when implanted in bone defects.

Abstract: The infrared and Raman spectra of Na substituted β-TCP are presented for various levels of substitution. The influence of Na content on main vibrational modes appears significant and among them the ν1 symmetric stretching band is very sensitive to PO4 3- tetrahedrons environment. Thus, this mode was particularly investigated and has been decomposed using Lorentzian shapes components. We assigned the calculated components to the different types of PO4 3- tetrahedrons present in the crystalline structure.