Bioactivity of degradable polymer sutures coated with bioactive glass

Novel bioactive materials have been prepared by coating violet resorbable Vicryl(R) sutures with a bioactive glass powder derived from a co-precipitation method. Two techniques have been chosen for the composite preparation: pressing the sutures in a bed of glass powder and slurry-dipping of sutures in liquid suspensions of bioactive glass powders. The uniformity and thickness of the coatings obtained by the two methods were compared. The bioactivity of the sutures with and without bioactive glass coating was tested by soaking in an inorganic acellular simulated body fluid (SBF). The composite sutures were characterised by XRD, SEM and FTIR analyses before and after soaking in SBF solution to assess the formation of hydroxyapatite on their surfaces, which is a qualitative measure of their bioactivity. The possible use of bioactive sutures to produce tissue engineering scaffolds and as reinforcement of resorbable calcium phosphates is discussed. (C) 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers.