Biodegradable plates and screws in the fixation of maxillofacial fractures

Introduction Titanium plates and screws have been used several years in the fixation of maxillofacial fractures. Despite of positive and satisfactory properties of titanium plates and screws, they must still be regarded as a foreign body to the human organism. In this way, researchers attempt to archive degradable plates and screws that could be solved this problem. In this review article, we investigated various types of biodegradable plates and screws and compared it with titanium plates and screws as the golden standard for fixation of maxillofacial fractures. Objectives The aims of this study are investigation of biodegradable plates and screws in the fixation of maxillofacial fractures and compare it with titanium plates and screws. Methods To perform this review study, all articles of electronic databases in Medline (PubMed), EMBASE, Web of Science and SCOPUS focused on the use of Micro-CT in dental researches until 2018 were investigated. Results Results show although biodegradable plates and screws don’t need to secondary surgery and degraded during time but they have inferior mechanical properties such as low tensile and torsion strength in comparison with titanium plates and screws. In another hand, biodegradable plates and screws have larger size than titanium type and it may be causes palpability however these plates degraded during time and therefore this palpability is unimportant. Moreover, they haven’t interference with CT and other imaging techniques. ConclusionIt is required to further studies and researches to develop biodegradable plates and screws and solution of their problems such as improvement of their low mechanical properties, reduction of their size and time of insertion.

Keywords:

Biodegradable , Plates , Screws , Fixation , Maxillofacial