Biomimetic synthetic test system based on hydroxyapatite cement for adhesive strength evaluation of experimental mineral-organic bone adhesive materials

The development of bone adhesive materials is a research field of high relevance for the advancement of clinical procedures. Despite this, there are currently no material candidates meeting the full range of requirements placed on such a material, such as biocompatibility, sufficient mechanical properties and bond strength under biological conditions, practical applicability in a clinical setting, and no adverse effect on the healing process itself. A serious obstacle to the advancement of the field is a lack in standardized methodology leading to comparable results between experiments and different research groups. Natural bone samples are the current gold-standard material used to perform adhesive strength experiments, however they come with a number of drawbacks, including high sample variability due to unavoidable natural causes and the impossibility to reliably recreate test conditions to repeat experiments. This paper introduces a valuable auxiliary test method capable of producing large numbers of synthetic test specimens which are chemically similar to bone and can be produced in different laboratories so to repeat experiments under constant conditions across laboratories. The substrate is based on a hydroxyapatite forming cement with addition of gelatine as organic component. Crosslinking of the organic component is performed to improve mechanical properties. In order to demonstrate the performance of the developed method, various experimental and commercial bone/tissue adhesive materials were tested and compared with results obtained by established methods to highlight the potential of the test system.