Metallic materials, as biomedical functional materials, are an important branch of materials science, which has been used for more than 400 years. In the UK, it used the pure gold plate to repair the skull and the teeth, and then used the fixed fracture joints of silver, iron, wire and iron alloy successively. After 1930, the United Kingdom and the United States used cobalt - based alloys as human implants. During world war ii, the United Kingdom, the United States and Japan used a large number of stainless steel as human implants. In the early 1950s, with the development of the rare metal industry, titanium, niobium and zirconium were used as human implants for clinical trials.
In 1972, our country began to adopt the domestic titanium and titanium alloy products, Beijing jishuitan hospital and so on more than 20 hospitals, successively with titanium and titanium alloy artificial bones and joints used in the clinical application and research, manufacturing of hip joint, elbow joint, mandibular etc. Used in clinical treatment of patients. At the same time, huashan hospital and Shanghai institute of metallurgy, simulated body fluid immersion test and electrochemical anodization experiments and corrosion kinetics curve measurement, proved that the titanium and titanium alloy artificial bones and joints used in the human body has excellent corrosion resistance, the biological reaction are also small, is an ideal medical implants. Fudan university biology, human physiology research group and Shanghai sixth people's hospital of implanted bone and joint mechanical properties determination, believe that the strength of the titanium and titanium alloy meet the requirements of the human body implants.
Related research around the world and a large number of instances of clinical treatment, approval from the depth and breadth of titanium and titanium alloy is by far the most ideal human implant metal materials, has been included in today's medical surgical after stainless steel, cobalt base alloy rise of the third generation of metal.
After the mid - 1980 - s, domestic titanium and titanium alloy processing materials used in the manufacture of increase in the number of medical implants, including the development and application of shape memory alloy titanium reached the international advanced level. In the mid-1990s, domestic titanium and titanium alloy processing materials were widely used in orthopaedic surgery, neurosurgery, cardiovascular system, oral and maxillofacial surgery, human external culture machine, etc. In the past five years, a number of enterprises including tianjin weiman biological materials co., LTD., Beijing osprike new technology co., LTD. Have become the production enterprises of titanium and stainless steel. Using titanium and titanium alloy manufacture of femoral head, hip, humerus, skull, knee, elbow, shoulder joint, joint, jaw and heart valves, kidney distinguishes the membrane, blood vessel expander, plywood, prosthesis, fastening screws and other hundreds of transplanted into the body of the metal, has obtained the good effect, gave a high evaluation by the medical profession.
Human implants are special functional materials closely related to human life and health. Compared with other metal materials, the advantages of titanium and titanium alloys are mainly six points:
1 light; 2. Low elastic modulus; 3. No magnetism; 4. Non-toxic; 5. Corrosion resistance; 6. High strength and good toughness.
The use of titanium and titanium alloys have excellent characteristics, is universally recognized to be excellent in the field of biomedical metal materials, with the use of metal material such as stainless steel, cobalt base alloy, compared with larger application advantages, development space is very large.
According to relevant information, metal materials as human implants gradually increase. Since 1990, more than 2 million pieces of metal have been implanted in the United States alone each year, including the medullary joints and femur. 5%; In Europe, the supply and demand of external fixed products and internal fixed products are both strong, mainly in France, Germany, Italy and the UK, and the market value reached 2 in 2004. Eight hundred million dollars, of which the internal fixed products account for 85. 7%. In recent 10 years, biomedical materials and products market growth rate remained at 20% ~ 25%, and predict the future 10 ~ 15 years, medical apparatus and instruments, including biomedical materials, industrial development is fast, will achieve economies of scale, become the pillar industry of the world economy.
Medical titanium and titanium alloy material advantages have been accepted by the medical profession, also accepted by more and more patients, considering the factors, sports trauma of war and the factor of people's living standards improve, the preferred growth space of the titanium and titanium alloy for medical implants is very big, is bound to become new economic growth point in titanium application development.
