Biomechanical Effect of Implantation of Chitosan/MWNTs Reinforced Scaffold into Damaged Femur

Scaffold is one of the important factors in the regenerative medicine which could allow tissues growth and support structure during the repair. However, most of the synthetic polymer based scaffolds have not enough mechanical properties for bone regeneration. Recently, reinforced scaffolds have been proposed to solve these problems. When the scaffolds are implanted in the human body, it is important to predict the effect after implantation. In this study, biomechanical effects of reinforced scaffolds with different types of reinforcement materials implanted into a damaged femur were analyzed using the CT-image based finite element analysis. It was found that the scaffold with Chitosan/MWNTs reinforcement is very effective to achieve a biomechanical compatibility with natural bone tissue. (Received October 29, 2012; accepted November 29, 2012)