Bioresorbable Composite for Orthopedics and Drug Delivery Applications

Metallic internal fixation devices have a lot of limitations; however, it has been considered the gold standard for fixation devices. The limitations of metallic fixation are the leaching of metallic ions, stress shielding, underlying bone damage, and heavyweight. The other problems associated are surgery after bone fracture healing. Polymeric composites play a vital role in bone fixations, scaffolds, wound healing, and other biomedical applications. The major advantages of polymeric composites are that they can be tailored as per the requirement, easily shaped, and fabricated, and functional biomaterials can be mixed into certain proportions to make them more functional and biomimetic. In this context, resorbable polymers are widely used and also make a significant impact or contribution to emerging biomedical applications. A variety of resorbable polymers, such as polylactic acid, polycaprolactone, PHB, PGA, PLA/PGA, etc., are normally used with additional bioactive materials such as hydroxyapatite, chitosan, ceria, and other inorganic substances to have mechanical strength and also functional. In this chapter, various domains of emerging polymeric composites will be discussed in detail, highlighting the worthwhile applications in emerging biomedical applications.