Bioactive Glass Incorporated Plexiglass Bone Cement: Value Addition for Osteoporotic Vertebral Compression Fracture: (OVCF)

Since 1984 ‘Plexiglass’or polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) bone cement has been widely used as bone augmenting biomaterial in percutaneous vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty to restore osteoporosis induced vertebral compression fractures (OVCF). However, subsequent investigations have found that PMMA has several inherent flaws, including bio inertness, radiolucency, a lack of antibacterial activity, etc. that impart long-term adverse effects. This communication’s objective was to synthesis of a sol–gel derived bioactive glass composition 70SiO2-(30-x–y) CaO-xBi2O3-yAg2O (BG) [x = 0.5–2 mol%, y = 0.5-1 mol %] that might be used as an active ingredient to improvise the shortcomings of PMMA bone cement. Initially, the synthesized BG powder was analytically characterized by XRD, TG-DSC, and FESEM-EDX. Afterward, the BG powder was reinforced into a commercial PMMA bone cement at an optimized ratio (w/w) to obtain a PMMA-BG composite. After that, an in-vitro comparison of PMMA and PMMA-BG was made to assess their antibacterial efficacy, cytotoxicity, bioactivity, cell attachment, bone matrix mineralization, and radiopacity. Finally, the results showed that adding BG powder to PMMA bone cement  improved the performance of the final composite material.